The Daily Beast and The New Criterion on The Secret History
Long after I expected the well of reviews for The Secret History to have run dry, two new appraisals popped up. Earlier this month, Jeffrey Meyers weighed in on the book for The New Criterion. In “Legacy of Sorrows,” Meyers—a biographer of Edmund Wilson and many other literary figures—declares that The magician buried his past […]
Next up: readings in San Francisco and West Hollywood
Hello, California! I’m heading out Wednesday to bring The Secret History of Vladimir Nabokov to you. Here’s the schedule of events for the week: Wednesday, June 12, I’ll be at The Booksmith on Haight Street in San Francisco, reading at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 13, I’ll be part of the group event “Why There Are Words” at Studio […]
Talking Nabokov at the Smithsonian this Thursday, June 6
For those of you living in and around the nation’s capital–seats are still available for my talk at the Smithsonian Associates program this Thursday (June 6), starting at 6:45 pm in Washington, DC. I’ll be looking at both Lolita and Pale Fire in the context of Nabokov’s family, as well as World War II and concentration camp history. See images […]
The New York Review of Books looks at The Secret History
Nabokov had a complicated relationship with his critics, not least Edmund Wilson, whose 1965 review of Eugene Onegin in The New York Review of Books put a stake through the heart of their friendship. Here’s Wilson’s opening line: This production, though in certain ways valuable, is something of a disappointment; and the reviewer, though a […]
In which McSweeney’s and I jinx Evgeni Nabokov
If you’re out there reading this, Evgeni Nabokov, I’m very, very sorry. Though you don’t really have anything directly to do with The Secret History, I thought it would be fun to write something about the fact that you, the New York Islanders’ goalie, share a last name with Vladimir Nabokov. Given that the Islanders […]
Registration opens for June Secret History event at the Smithsonian
This week I’ll be in Chicago (the Book Cellar, May 3) and Minneapolis (Magers & Quinn, May 2). But I wanted to post a quick note to let mid-Atlantic readers know that registration has opened for my next book event, on Thursday, June 6 at the Smithsonian Associates program in Washington, DC. The June DC talk […]
