Welcome back to Significant Others.

I'm Liza Powell O'Brien.

Yesterday's episode was all about Vera Nabokov and her husband Vladimir.

I've been curious about Vera Nabokov ever since I heard how she rescued the manuscript

of Lalita from the trash can, but I'd pretty much written off ever learning more about her

because I heard that the Nabokov estate was very closed to researchers.

But then a long came Pulitzer Prize winner Stacey Schiff, and she pulled off a miracle

of biography, and she's here to talk with us about it today.

Stacey, thank you so much for being here.

I'm such a fan of your work.

I am entirely delighted to join you.

That's so nice of you.

What drew you to her as a subject?

I think it's one of those situations where, because we know little, there's a tremendous

very appealing mystery at the center of the story.

At the outset, I think I knew only these facts.

I knew that nearly every book is dedicated to her.

I knew that she was Jewish and her husband was not, but it was a fairly unusual marriage

in that respect given his origins.

I knew that she carried a gun in her purse, and I knew that she went to class every day,

every day he lectured when he was at Cornell, and I think it was from those sort of disparate

points that I started.

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