Super Sad True Love Story (50 page)

As the evening wore on, my friends received still more visitors, two young Cinecittà actresses just arrived from Rome. They had no idea who I was, but we soon learned that one of these glamorous young personages had just been charged with playing Eunice Park in a new Cinecittà video spray of my diaries. The hacks at Hengdian World Studios in Zhejiang had already clocked in one artistic disaster with their
Lenny
♥
Euny Super Sad True Love
series, and now the Italians were having a go at it.

“I have to do
this
with my face!” the actress playing Eunice said, pulling at her eyelids and then sticking out her upper front teeth. She then launched into a fairly accurate rendition of a spoiled pre-Rupture California girl while her friend hastened to appropriate the luckless Abramov. “My tuna-brain! My jerk-face! My nerd-face!” the first actress belted out, as her colleague, in the role of Abramov, fell prostrate on the ground at her feet, weeping hysterically. This prompted my friends’ five-year-old son to jump up and down around them, trying to mimic the funny English words.

My friends smiled warily at me and tried to signal the actresses to end their performance. Nonetheless, I presented a subdued mien. I set my mouth into its own version of Eunice’s dead smile and let the
laughter come out of me like the first coughs of water from a frozen pipe. I had been mechanically laughing for some time when I realized that the Cinecittà actress playing Eunice was using her performance as a springboard for a long-winded critique of America, reaching as far back as the Reagan era, to a time when even her
parents
were not yet born.

Oh, give it up, I thought.
America’s gone
. All these years, and still a visceral hatred for a country that had destructed so suddenly, spectacularly, irreversibly. When would it end already? How long would we be forced to attend this malevolent wake? And then, before I could stop myself, I realized what was happening to me. I had begun to grieve. For all of us. For Joshie and Eunice and her parents and sister and Grillbitch a.k.a. Jenny Kang, and for the land that still shudders between Manhattan and Hermosa Beach.

There was only one way to stop the young actress’s diatribe. “They’re dead,” I lied.

“Cosa?”

“They didn’t survive.” And I laid out a scenario for the final days of Lenny Abramov and Eunice Park more gruesome than any of the grisly infernos splashed on the walls of the neighboring cathedral. The young Italians grew annoyed by this sudden end to their levity. They stared at me, at each other, and then at the beautifully laid wooden floors leading out to the pergola, beyond which a tableau of olive trees and grain fields, arrested by winter, dreamed of a new life. For a while at least, no one said anything, and I was blessed with what I needed the most. Their silence, black and complete.

Writing a book is real hard and lonely, let me tell you. I am so grateful that I have a generous group of readers who lift up their red pens and challenge me to do better.

David Ebershoff’s editing of the many drafts of this book was truly heroic. Here is that rare find, an editor who is also a brilliant author, brimming with emotional intelligence and real love for our old dear friend, the sentence. Denise Shannon has been a great agent and terrific reader for over a decade, through tales of immigrant angst, fat gangster sons, and now this. Sara Holloway of
Granta
offered thoughtful advice carrier-pigeoned across the Atlantic. And any Random House author who has Jynne Martin on their case is lucky indeed.

I want to thank my research assistant, Alex Gilvarry, for helping me understand how science works. (Apparently we’re all made up of many cells.) He has helped me burrow into the works of two thinkers who have influenced this volume: Ray Kurzweil, author of, among many books,
The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology
and
Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever
, and Aubrey de Grey, author of
Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthrough That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime
.

The American Academy in Berlin, the Civitella Ranieri Center in Umbria, Italy, and the Corporation of Yaddo have all given me splendid shelter and mouthwatering fare.

There are so many dear people who have gone through the numerous drafts of this book. I know I’m leaving out at least a half-dozen of them, but that’s only because my memory has taken a beating over the years. For everyone who has helped me with this
book, please accept my love and gratitude. Among them: Elisa Albert, Doug Choi, Adrienne Day, Joshua Ferris, Rebecca Godfrey, David Grand, Cathy Park Hong, Gabe Hudson, Christine Suewon Lee, Paul LeFarge, Jynne Martin, Daniel Menaker, Alana Newhouse, Ed Park, Shilpa Prasad, Akhil Sharma, and John Wray.

G
ARY
S
HTEYNGART
was born in Leningrad in 1972 and came to the United States seven years later. His debut novel,
The Russian Debutante’s Handbook
, won the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction and the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. His second novel,
Absurdistan
, was named one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by
The New York Times Book Review
, as well as a best book of the year by
Time, The Washington Post Book World
, the
San Francisco Chronicle
, the
Chicago Tribune
, and many other publications. He has been selected as one of
Granta
’s Best Young American Novelists. His work has appeared in
The New Yorker, Esquire, GQ
, and
Travel + Leisure
and his books have been translated into more than twenty languages. He lives in New York City.

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Super Sad True Love Story
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www.SuperSadTrueLoveStory.com

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