Gary Shteyngart

Super sad true love story, if for some terrible reason you don't know.

is a 2010 book by Gary Steingart.

And I think more than any other book, it predicted the strangeness of the world we live in today, and also a lot of what it feels like to live in it.

All of the constant staring at screens, the hyper-visual nature of modern life, the obsession with wellness,

and longevity and looks-maxing amidst the backdrop of a country that often feels like it's falling apart.

Inflation is hitting its highest point in three years.

A world where everybody is upset and they're grabbing at the wrong things to try to fix it.

I wanted to understand how the author of this book, Gary Steingart, had predicted all this, how he had known what it was going to feel like well into the future of when he was writing.

Gary Steingart, of course, has written a number of wonderful novels, including The Russian Debutante's Handbook.

absurdistan and his most recent vera or faith he's also written all these amazing essays on travel and cruise ships and martinis and his love of suits and watches many of those essays will be collected in a new book coming out in november called the sensualist that name the sensualist i think tells you something about what his project is what he believes is necessary to live well in a moment like this one

But I wanted to talk to him about all of it.

As always, my email is reclineshow at nytimes.com.

Gary Steingart, welcome to the show.

Great to be here, long-time listener.

So I've said to many people in my life that when I look around right now, I feel like I'm living in the world of Super Sad True Love Story.

So for those who haven't read it, can you just describe the world you create in that book?

So everyone carries a device called the aparat, which, wherever they go, it constantly ranks them.

But, you know, sort of the germ of Super Sad True Love's story is that the main character, Lenny Abramov, will walk into a bar or restaurant and immediately he is ranked as, say, the 23rd ugliest man in the room, right?

That's his thing.

At one point he walks in and he's the second ugliest man in the room, and the ugliest man can't take it and he leaves so that Lenny becomes the ugliest man in the room.