Recensori in anteprima

Vica, Vadik, Sergey, and Regina are émigrés living in New York City. Each in their mid-thirties, they're old friends from Russia who've remained close, though the pressures of daily life in America bear down on them. Vica, medical researcher and mother of one, must keep her Staten Island household together while her husband, Sergey, spins through a cycle of lost jobs as an analyst, hoping his great ideas for a hot new app will someday make him rich. Regina, once an esteemed translator, is now married to a wealthy investor and spends her days holed up in a sweeping Tribeca loft, curtains drawn, watching television and eating takeout; and Vadik, ever in search of a sense of newness, works hard as a programmer to keep his new apartment, new girlfriend, and new life in Williamsburg totally pristine. When Sergey hones his app idea--he calls it "Virtual Grave," intended to give a voice to those who've died via texting and social media--it begins a formidable debate in the group, spurring questions about mortality and memory, the inevitability of death, the loss of control, and what we hope to leave behind. And as the four friends share the many rises and falls of their love lives, struggles as immigrants in a still-new city, professional fortunes, and hopes for their futures, they consider what the point of life is, each discovering a newer, fuller way to exist in the now. An effortless and big-hearted novel about friendship, success, and connection, Lara Vapnyar's STILL HERE sets her among the ranks of today's most beloved literary storytellers.