One of the many important decisions we had to make in 2020 was who we would allow into our COVID-19 quarantine bubbles. As the first months of the pandemic rip the world apart in Gary Shteyngart’s Our Country Friends, eight friends, strangers and rivals are thrown together in a house in rural New York. The falling-down second home, owned by novelist Sasha Senderovsky, becomes a site of bottomless drama as the crew shelters in place.
Shteyngart is terrific at building characters who feel fully fleshed out, and it’s a real feat to do so with eight primary players. Some of the characters face truly difficult pandemic-related problems: Sasha’s wife, Masha, is terrified of the virus infecting their bubble, and their daughter, Nat, struggles with home-schooling. Others have dragged personal problems to the country refuge: career upswings and downswings, unrequited love, unsatiated horniness and internet infamy.
The dark backdrop of the outside world—COVID deaths, job losses, George Floyd’s murder—is a distant concern to these self-absorbed characters, but the reality of the times casts a pall over the superfluous country house exploits, from the famous actor’s wandering eye to the romantic foibles of a successful app creator.
While most of the plot takes place at the country home, the narrative’s tentacles reach far back in history and all around the globe. Several characters are first-generation immigrants, and they illustrate the mix of hardiness and anxiety that comes with uncertainty on a societal level. These are the moments when it feels like Shteyngart has something to say about resilience and strength.
Stalwart fans of Shteyngart’s brand of satire won’t find these characters’ narcissism to be too grating, but given the gravity of the past year and a half, not all readers will have the patience for their flimflammery.
