Shteyngart's second novel (
The Russian Debutante's Handbook, 2002, was the first) is a wild ride that follows its protagonist and narrator, Misha Vainburg, from St. Petersburg (or St. Leninsburg as he prefers to call it) to a tiny country in the Caucasus called Absurdsvani, with occasional detours via flashbacks to New York City and Misha's midwestern alma mater, Accidental College.
Misha, whose life seems to be a series of outlandish adventures, continues in that manner after the murder of his wealthy gangster father. Denied a visa to return to the U.S. or even the European Union, he instead heads for Absurdsvani, Absurdistan in his eyes, to purchase a Belgian visa. There he becomes embroiled in the tiny country's volatile politics fueled by the dark forces of Halliburton, or "Golly Burton" as the Absurdistanis call it.
Shteyngart's satire takes no prisoners, including himself. Who else could tie together nineteenth-century Russian literature, hip-hop, and twenty-first century oil politics and strife? But then Misha, as he often describes himself in this very funny, very pointed book, is a multiculturalist.
