Lit: Gary Shteyngart / "Super Sad True Love Story"

This is hilarious. James Franco, why are you everywhere, causin' a ruckus?

While I've yet to read Super Sad True Love Story, I'm intrigued because the book cover is awesome.

It was designed by Rodrigo Corral for Random House. You can see a smattering of his other book cover work here at one of my favorite online collections, the Book Cover Archive. Corral designed the most recent Chuck Palahniuk books and James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, as well as last year's ubiquitous cover for Junot Diaz' The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. (It may not surprise you that he studied under Chip Kidd and Barbara deWilde at the School of Visual Arts in New York).

Reviews of the novel can be found at Salon and The New York Times. Shteyngart is reading in Chicago at Lincoln Square's Book Cellar Wednesday evening (9/22) at 7pm. I'm reserving judgment on the narrative thus far, but I'll go for the entertainment.

In lieu of a dust jacket blurb, here's a little cartoon for a recap, created by Gary Clement for the National Post:

Image found at the National Post, here.