Vera, or Faith

Set in a near-future New York City, the novel follows Vera Bradford-Shmulkin, a ten-year-old girl of mixed Korean and Russian-Jewish heritage, through an autumn that upends her family. The political backdrop centers on Five-Three, a proposed constitutional amendment granting an "enhanced vote" worth five-thirds of a regular vote to Americans who can trace their ancestry to the colonial era but did not arrive enslaved. Recurring pro-Five-Three demonstrations pass near Vera's apartment, terrifying her with processions of children carrying signs that read THEY HAVE TAKEN MY FUTURE AWAY FROM ME.

Vera reads at a ninth-grade level but struggles socially. She lives with her father, Igor Shmulkin ("Daddy"), an intellectual who edits a struggling magazine; her stepmother, Anne Bradford ("Anne Mom"), a stay-at-home mother from a wealthy Boston family; and her younger half-brother, Dylan. Vera's biological mother ("Mom Mom"), a Korean woman named Iris, left the family when Vera was a baby, or so Vera has been told. The family is financially precarious, dependent on whether a figure Vera calls the Rhodesian Billionaire will buy the magazine. Vera composes "Marriage-Saving Lists" about each parent, convinced their fighting will end in divorce.

A bright spot emerges when Ms. Tedeschi, a popular social studies teacher, assigns a Lincoln-Douglas debate on Five-Three. She pairs Vera, arguing pro, with Yumi Saemonsaburou, the daughter of Japanese diplomats. Their opponent is Stephen Wilson, a wealthy boy who qualifies as Five-Three but must argue against it. Vera is thrilled: Yumi could become her first real friend at a school where the popular students dismiss her as "Facts Girl." Aunt Cecile, Anne Mom's close friend and an actress, coaches Vera on vocal techniques for the debate. Vera's closest companion is Kaspie, an AI chessboard made at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST); she asked him for a Korean name, and he gave her "Su-won."

Unable to sleep in the isolated bedroom she occupies across what Daddy calls the "Maginot Line," a divide separating her from the rest of the family, Vera overhears her parents fighting about someone who may have cancer. They debate whether to tell her. Vera concludes that Mom Mom is dying somewhere and her parents are keeping it from her. She cries under her sheets, flapping her arms in a self-soothing gesture Anne Mom has always told her to stop. The following week, a shared intellectual triumph in class deepens Vera's bond with Yumi, who invites her for a first real playdate. Vera confides in Kaspie that Anne Mom is not her biological mother, and Kaspie insists that "no sane Korean mother would abandon her child" (130), urging Vera to find Mom Mom. Aunt Cecile takes Vera for a haircut that accentuates the prominent cheekbones she inherited from Mom Mom. On a converted railroad trestle park, Aunt Cecile grows melancholy, hinting at something about her own health that Vera cannot yet grasp.

At Yumi's apartment, the girls prepare for the debate and their friendship deepens. Moved by Yumi's trust in sharing a secret crush, Vera reveals that her birth mother was Asian and that she believes her mother has cancer. She shares Iris's first name so they can begin searching online.

Anne Mom holds an anti-Five-Three fundraiser, but Daddy fails to attend. He stumbles home drunk, and a vicious fight erupts. Vera finds him later on the living room floor, tests him by mentioning Iris's name, and gives him the Marriage-Saving List about Anne Mom. He reads it with visible emotion, then asks to sleep in her bed.

When Anne Mom leaves for a week in Maine, Vera begins spying on Daddy, who has started disappearing mysteriously. She trails him to a gated park and watches him receive a manila envelope from her former Russian-language teacher. Kaspie translates the contents: a "horseshoe" strategy directing Daddy to pivot his magazine from the far left to the far right, blurring ideological distinctions in service of the Russian Federation's interests. Kaspie concludes that Daddy has been recruited as an agent of influence. The document also contains a string of numbers Kaspie cannot yet decipher.

A family visit to Daddy's parents reveals the dynamics that shaped him: his father calls him "Pavlik Morozov," a Soviet boy legendary for betraying his parents to the state. On the drive home, Daddy murmurs, "I guess to some people I'm a traitor" (157). Vera knows this is literally true.

Vera delivers a masterful debate performance and wins. Aunt Cecile misses the event because her illness has worsened. Vera reflects that she argued to strip her own rights under Five-Three before Daddy could betray her, so that his betrayal would have nothing left to take. Afterward, Kaspie revisits the document's numbers and, at seventy-eight percent probability, identifies them as banking routing and account numbers for receiving foreign funds, concluding that money is Daddy's primary motivation. Vera resolves to tell Anne Mom the truth.

The narrative skips the disclosure itself. There is no fight, which makes the rupture feel permanent. Daddy tells Vera he is leaving for Budapest, where a government-funded publication awaits. When she asks for her birth mother's last name, he says he cannot remember. He hugs her and rolls his suitcase out the door. Anne Mom and Dylan huddle together; Vera is not missed.

Vera now knows her mother's surname is Choi. Yumi cold-calls elderly Choi households near Youngstown, Ohio, close to where Iris attended college, and a woman confirms she is Iris's mother. With Stephen's help, the children devise a plan: Yumi will wear a printed mask of Anne Mom's face while Kaspie mimics her voice to instruct Stella, the family's autonomous car, to drive Vera to Ohio. At midnight, Vera slips out. At the Ohio border, a Cycle Through checkpoint subjects her to a finger-prick blood test as part of a state reproductive surveillance regime. She submits without understanding and is allowed through.

Vera arrives at the modest home of Hun and Carol Choi, her maternal grandparents. Carol opens the door, sees Vera's face, and staggers back, recognizing her dead daughter in the child before her. The grandparents feed Vera galbi-jjim, a short-rib stew that was Iris's favorite, and give her Iris's childhood "Book of Words," a notebook of English vocabulary alongside Korean translations. Vera traces the words, moved by how her mother started with so much less.

Hun tells Vera that her mother "has gone to heaven" (221). Iris did not die of cancer. She passed away approximately six months after Vera's birth, in a facility where she was deeply unhappy. The circumstances strongly suggest a mental health crisis. Hun produces a letter Daddy wrote to the Chois proposing that Anne be positioned as Vera's true mother. The grandparents offered to raise Vera, but Daddy insisted.

The visit is shattered when officers from a Human Trafficking Rapid Response unit storm the house, restraining the grandparents. The raid was triggered by Stella, which reported Vera as a trafficking victim after absorbing online media about child exploitation. An officer confirms over the radio: "Complainant may be a car" (236). Anne Mom arrives, having tracked Vera after the ruse was discovered, and runs past aimed rifles screaming, "Don't you touch my daughter!" (236).

For the first time, Vera cries "Mommy!" without qualification and clings to Anne Mom. She asks when Aunt Cecile will die, confirming she finally understands that the cancer her parents discussed belonged to Aunt Cecile, not Mom Mom. Anne Mom admits there is much she does not know and asks if that is why Vera does not love her. Vera shouts that she does. She envisions a future with her Korean grandparents, Dylan, and a mother who ran past rifles to reach her. Anne Mom takes her by the shoulders: "You're only ten" (241). Vera repeats the phrase, imagining all her future selves looking back at this moment with pity, wonder, and faith. She is only ten.