The great dark pleasure of Shteyngart's novel is the world that his characters live in, inferred from the most dynamic and threatening parts of ours. The Chinese control everything, the streets are equipped with "Credit Poles" that broadcast the credit ratings of passersby, the U.S. is at war in Venezuela, and it looks as though Venezuela might win. Betrayed veterans of the Venezuelan war are camped out in Central Park, attempting to put together a coup, but it is doubtful that the only named government official, Secretary Rubinstein of the American Restoration Authority, will allow that. The difficulties of daily life are constant. When Shteyngart's protagonist, Lenny Abramov, goes to pick up his friend at JFK, "I almost missed her flight because a part of the Williamsburg Bridge had collapsed and we spent an hour trying to turn around on Delancey Street next to a hasty new ARA sign that said, 'Together We'll Repare [sic] This Bridge'."
The general impoverishment of the U.S. does not mean that there isn't an elite class of the wealthy and stylish. Young college graduates with high scores of all sorts have three ways to become High Net Worth Individuals: Retail, Media, or Credit.
Lenny's beloved, a Korean American immigrant named Eunice Park who is both appalled and attracted by Lenny's habit of reading books rather than scanning texts, is preparing herself for Retail; Lenny's best friend from college, Noah Weinberg, is in Media, which consists of live streaming every moment of his day.
