This novel is not a retelling of the Dostoyevsky novel…I mean, I think…I haven’t read it yet. But what this book is, apparently, a kind of roman a clef, supported by the biographical details that overlap with Elif Batuman’s own, but also her own interviews in which she talks about the thin lines between fiction and nonfiction. The novel is about a young Turkish-American woman from New Jersey’s first year at Harvard as an academically gifted and academically intelligent young woman who is emotionally unready […]