A narrator can make or break a book. Holden Caulfield from “The Catcher in the Rye” is too whiny for some; Humbert Humbert of “Lolita” fame is almost too effective in his perversion for others. Author Gary Shteyngart clearly takes inspiration from the exacting diaristic narration of authors like Vladimir Nabokov. But what propels his form of narration in his latest novel, “Vera, or Faith,” beyond even Humbert’s and Hermann’s , is the direction Shteyngart brings his lens. That is, down. “Vera, Or Faith,” which is told from the perspective of a precocious 10-year-old named Vera, throws itself fully into its limited point of view.

Vera is extremely internal. She catalogs the world around her, an outsider who is desperate to feel included by the people in her life. Keeping a “Things I Sti

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