Gary Shteyngart

When he finds the love of his life, Eunice, when he goes out with his friends, that there's still an avenue toward a kind of overwhelming feeling of contentment that may go away by the next day or when the hangover sets in, but that is there at least for a while.

There's a character in Supercell True Love Story who I think is interesting for this conversation, which is Joshie, Lenny's boss.

Tell me a bit about Joshie.

So Joshi is, let's see, how old is Joshi?

Well, we don't even know how old Joshi is.

He could be in his 80s, but it doesn't matter because he is using every kind of anti-aging technique possible.

Joshi does not want to die.

He feels, and this is interesting because I think this is true of so many of the people that use this kind of technology, he feels that he hasn't really lived, that he hasn't really had a good life.

A lot of people, and I know a lot of people in, for example, finance, because I wrote a book, Lake Success, that was set in the world of hedge funders, so I had to spend four years hanging out with them.

I think not 100%, but so many of the ones I've met have had really...

unremarkably awful childhoods.

And there's a need to somehow create the perfect life and live that life.

And that life is always the opposite of the rearview mirror.

I don't know, always in the windshield.

You're always looking forward to it.

It never quite comes.

But in order to reach it one day, one has to extend life almost indefinitely.

I remember one of the first things when we emigrated to America, my parents would say about Americans, who always seemed so unhappy despite the fact that they were so much richer than us.

We were living on garment trees for a time, you know.

And my parents and other Russians would say, which translates very vaguely as, they're wild with their own fat.