A unique portrait of Vladimir Nabokov told through the lens of the years he spent in a land that enchanted him, America.
Robert Roper's journalism appears in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, National Geographic, Outside, and other publications. He won the 2002 Boardman-Tasker Prize for his book Fatal Mountaineer, and his most recent book, Now the Drum of War, was an Editor's Choice pick in the New York Times Book Review. He has also published several novels. He teaches at Johns Hopkins University and lives in Baltimore and California.
Fascinating. . . An evocative portrait of the novelist in the
United States that’s pungent with small, revealing Nabokovian
details . . . Mr. Roper has succeeded in making a persuasive case
for the essential role America played both in shaping Lolita and
helping to configure the gyroscopic spin of Nabokov’s later
career.
*The New York Times*
Roper chronicles the two decades that Nabokov lived in the United
States (the writer had long dreamed of "vulgar, far-flung America")
and its powerful ramifications for Nabokov's work. Our reviewer,
Daphne Merkin, called the book “a scholarly romp that should
engage admirers of Nabokov.
*The New York Times Book Review*
Nabokov in America is rewarding on all counts, as biography, as
photo album (there are many pictures of people, Western landscapes
and motels) and as appreciative criticism. Not least, Roper even
avoids the arch style so often adopted by critics faintly trying to
emulate their inimitable subject.
*Washington Post*
A learned, intense, and yet approachable book . . . Roper provides
a powerful argument for the role America played in shaping one of
the 20th century’s literary giants.
*Boston Globe*
Compelling and oddly comic, this tale of the Nabokovs and their
life in America is fascinating reading . . . Roper has done a crisp
and inspired job exploring this momentous literary figure and his
place as a strange piece of 20th-century Americana.
*Library Journal*
In this enjoyable new biography of his American years, [Roper]
follows the author of Lolita and Pale Fire on a 20-year journey
across America . . . A fresh look at Nabokov's writing and literary
associations, including his contentious friendship with Edmund
Wilson. It's a great read.
*San Jose Mercury News*
Roper, rather stunningly, puts Nabokov, the Russian emigre, fully
in America . . . One of the best of all biographical studies of the
author.
*Buffalo News, Editor's Choice*
In this fresh and engaging biography, biographer, novelist, and
critic Roper traces the trajectory of his career, friendships, and
family life, as well as his indefatigable passion for butterflies.
Drawing judiciously on Brian Boyd's Vladimir Nabokov: The American
Years (1991) and Stacy Schiff's biography of Vera Nabokov (1999),
as well as the writer's correspondence, Roper illuminates such
works as Pnin, Speak, Memory, and Pale Fire.
*Kirkus Reviews*
Roper's biography is at once a general introduction and a
dissertation on the Russian-born émigré's career and novels written
in America . . . Through much original material (notes to
publishers, letters to his wife, son Dimitri's memoir), Roper
captures Nabokov's arrogance, his brilliance as a lecturer and
translator, his passion and mastery of the Russian oeuvre, and his
childlike happiness throughout his adult life . . . sure to satiate
Nabokov fanatics.
*Booklist*
The transposition of the highly Europeanized Russian Vladimir
Nabokov to America, and his fruitful presence here, is a
fascinating adventure that Robert Roper has the estimable chops to
convey. I've read a lot of books about Nabokov but this is my
favorite.
*Thomas McGuane*
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