Jenny Schuessler: I am trying to track down a vaguely
recollected dig Nabokov made at American writers who on their dustjackets
self-consciously trumpet their experiences driving a milk truck, working on the
docks, picking corn, etc. Does this ring a bell with anyone?
JM: The photograph with
Nabokov holding a spade (and digging, perhaps?) was taken in May 1923. He was
spending the Summer in the south of France, in a farm owned by his parents's
friends ( Domaine-Beaulieu, close to Toulon).
Cf. Vladimir Nabokov, A Pictorial Biography,
1991, Ardis Publishers.