Paul Russell


Advance Praise and Reviews

“In literary heaven, where Vladimir Nabokov now resides, he wouldn't approve of this convincing dream evocation of the life of his gay brother, but the novel is a sidelong tribute to Nabokov—tender, sad, and moving, with touches of the Maestro's elegance.”—Herbert Gold, author of Still Alive and Fathers

“Paul Russell has been so skillful and so fond in the creation of this Unreal Life that his readers will unavoidably identify it with the real one which ended in 1943. Now it is their turn to sift what is real from what is imagined, mine only to applaud the author of every life, unreal and otherwise, in this inescapable construction ‘dedicated to that ghost,’ a voice-over of Sergey, the lost Nabokov, that maintains us all in a sort of double time-machine compelling us to follow the consecrated Nabokovs and a host of others through the last ecstasies of gay Europe.”—Richard Howard, author of Inner Voices and Papertrail

“The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov advances the art of biography even as it proves itself the very best of Paul Russell’s fine novels. I read half of it not even thinking that Sergey Nabokov was a ‘real person,’ largely because the intimacy author Russell brings to his subject is the total kind one finds only in art, but then something told me, you’re reading two sorts of book at once—a stupendous thrill ride all by itself. History and myth combine to tell the saga, apparently from inside, as we’ve never experienced it—the splendors and miseries of Tsarist Russia, the picnic of modernism that was the 20s Paris of Cocteau, Stein, and Diaghilev, and the unfolding nightmare of the Third Reich. Our hero lacks his brother’s genius, but he is that rare creature, the genuinely brave and sweet man to whom one hates to say goodbye. And now we don’t have to.”—Kevin Killian, author of Shy and Arctic Summer

"An extraordinary novel, tender, fierce, and graceful, The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov is a tale of place and displacement, of shadows and siblings and countries shaken by change—and sustained, as the reader will be, by the quiet heroism of art. A tour de force."—Brenda Wineapple, author of White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson

"The historical life of Sergey Nabokov was altogether real and all too short. But there are forms of history that only fiction can suggest, and this subtle novel movingly brings back from the shadows a rich, lost life." —Michael Wood, author of The Magician's Doubts: Nabokov and the Risks of Fiction

“‘Beauty plus pity,’ Vladimir Nabokov’s famous definition of art, perfectly describes this moving, artful novel. Intimate and epic, gorgeously written, divinely detailed, The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov is an ingenious hybrid of a book, powerful, troubling, exciting.”—Sigrid Nunez, author of Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag

"A miraculous novel, witty, sexy, dramatic, and profound, the deeply involving story of a young man who experiences too much love, beauty and history in the first half of the twentieth century. It is Paul Russell's masterpiece." —Christopher Bram, author of Gods and Monsters

"It takes an accomplished novelist to bring to glittering life a lost and foreign world. Paul Russell achieves this feat with disarming ease inThe Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov, a daring, ambitious, playful, intelligent, and deeply affecting novel. Russell lavished upon Vladimir Nabokov's unheralded and doomed younger brother Sergey the divine attention, sympathy and patience we all wish to receive from our creator. While compulsively reading this book, I felt an occasional twinge of envy, and I thought that it must have been as exciting to write as it is to read."—Valerie Martin, author ofThe Confessions of Edward Day

“This astounding book will remind the reader not of Nabokov, but of Tolstoy: for the epic sweep across history, of course, but even more for the great Tolstoyan trick of finding the one detail in a bit player—the livid scar on the naked thigh of a Russian peasant, the subversive “hangman’s lock” of hair sported by a kid in Nazi Berlin—that somehow conjures up a whole vanished world of seeing and feeling. Sergey Nabokov is a triumphant invention: eyes and heart wide open through every catastrophe, he emerges as a new kind of hero, an intrepid conquistador of loss.”—Mark Merlis, author of An Arrow’s Flight

"The only thing 'unreal' about this novel is the skill it took to write it. Paul Russell exhibits uncanny knowledge of the period and its people. He is an unfailing guide through St. Petersburg, Paris, and Berlin, dope dens, literary salons, drag balls, and war-torn streets. From the height of genius to the depth of the gutter, Russell extends his precise, penetrating and panoramic gaze."—David Bergman, author of The Violet Hour

"Always readable and compelling, Paul Russell’s The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov is a brilliant impersonation, literary prestidigitation of a higher order, and in the end, the unexpected, unique, and solidly mature work we were awaiting from this already accomplished author."— Felice Picano, author of True Stories: Portraits From My Past

"In this melancholy, graceful novel, Paul Russell has captured a vanished time and people, and even the clarity and formality of mid-20th century émigré prose. Despite loss and alienation dating almost from birth, Russell’s Sergey emerges as the more humane Nabokov brother, and you cheer for his brief happiness and the love he found before history closed in."—Regina Marler, author of Bloomsbury Pie

"Paul Russell's sublime novel The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov is an astonishing work of art. In lucid prose, Russell retells the story of Nabokov's gay brother, allowing us a clear window into an overlooked life and an underwritten aspect of history. This mesmerizing novel not only recreates the shifting, unstable epoch of Europe in the first half of the twentieth century, but reimagines Sergey's persona, his loves and fate with great authenticity and imagination. It's a heartbreaking novel that everyone should read."—Alistair McCartney, author of The End of the World Book

“The Unreal Life of Sergey Nabokov is a remarkable achievement from one of our best authors. Russell’s protagonist, an outsider because of his sexuality, is an eyewitness to world-changing events who manages to find a place for himself at the heart of the creative life of his times. Russell gives us incisive portraits of Cocteau, Diaghilev, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas and their Charmed Circle, and Vladimir and Véra Nabokov, and glimpses into the demimonde of Paris and Berlin. His ability to reveal his characters’ flaws without judging them results in moments of poignancy that make the triumphs as well as the tragedies he portrays all the more moving.”—Patrick Merla, editor of Boys Like Us: Gay Writers Tell Their Coming-Out Stories

“What makes this remarkable novel unforgettable is the exact and vivid portrayal of Sergey Nabokov as he makes his way through an extraordinary time in history. Paul Russell’s writing is breathtaking. This book will surely become a classic.”—V. G. Lee, author of The Comedienne and As You Step Outside