The most remarkable passages of Lake Success take place when the novel shifts back to Manhattan, where Barry's wife, Seema, struggles to raise their son who has autism. Naturally, unlimited wealth eases some of the attendant challenges: Seema can afford to convene a small army of therapists to plan her son's first play date. But Shteyngart seems to have somehow gained entrance into a world even more secretive than the realm of high finance. For all its droll send-up of the moneyed class, Lake Success is one of the most heartbreaking novels I've read about raising a child with special needs, and as the father of a daughter with cerebral palsy, I've read many of them. In Seema's ferocious love and Barry's flight reflex, I recognize the storm of conflicting emotions that parents like me endure — from our poisonous sense of failure to our shameful resentment of parents with typical children. Shteyngart captures all that just right, along with the tender moments, the tiny breakthroughs, the miraculous flashes of connection that make such a life endurable.