Vera, or Faith: A Novel

The Bradford-Shmulkin family—a modern blend of Russian, Jewish, Korean, and New England WASP backgrounds—is falling apart under the pressures of life in an unstable America. The family includes Daddy, a struggling editor whose Russian heritage has unexpected relevance in contemporary geopolitics; Anne Mom, a progressive Boston blue blood barely holding the household together; their son Dylan, whose appearance and lineage give him status in the new American political order; and ten-year-old Vera, half-Jewish and half-Korean, who observes family life with sensitivity and a habit of writing down new vocabulary words. Vera wants three things: to make a friend at school, to keep her parents together, and to meet her birth mother, Mom Mom, who she believes holds the secret to her identity and how to preserve love in a fractured world. Told through Vera's clear and tender perspective, this novel explores family and country during rapid social transformation, drawing comparison to Henry James's What Maisie Knew.