To some writers, Vera Nabokov remains much more than “just a wife,” but rather a template for an enviable asset. Schiff writes that “Even her detractors held that Vera Nabokov participated in her husband’s work to an unprecedented degree … The original Nabokovian, she was a full creative partner in everything her husband did.” According to Schiff, “Lawyers, publishers, relatives, colleagues, friends, agreed on one point: ‘He would have been nowhere without her.’” (And yet: “‘She was just a wife,’ remembered a publisher with whom she corresponded on her husband’s behalf, for three decades.”) Through 1976, the year before his death, he also published 10 short story collections and nine poetry collections along with criticism, plays, uncollected short stories, and translations.

With Vera by his side, Nabokov published 18 novels between 19 (both in Russian and English). In addition to teaching his classes on occasion (in which Nabokov openly referred to her as “my assistant”), Vera also famously saved Lolita, the work that would define her husband’s career, several times from incineration, according to Stacy Schiff ‘s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2000 biography, Vera (Mrs. Vera not only performed all the duties expected of a wife of her era-that is, being a free live-in cook, babysitter, laundress, and maid (albeit, she considered herself a “terrible housewife”)-but also acted as her husband’s round-the-clock editor, assistant, and secretary. Twenty-three years after her death, Vera Nabokov remains a revered figure in capital “L” Literature-not necessarily for her own work, but for devoting herself fully to that of her husband, the great Vladimir Nabokov. Most of them have these great, devoted wives, some version of Vera Nabokov. Moore, a divorcée and single mother, noted, “There are some men I know who are teaching and writing who are single fathers. Moore herself, however, explained to The New York Times that it’s difficult to both publish and maintain her day job as a writing professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Philip Hensher at The Guardian also lamented Moore’s production rate in crafting a modest volume of stories, writing, “Eight stories since 2003 is not a great deal, especially when three of them weren't worth publishing.” “I’ll admit that when I first saw its modest size and table of contents-eight stories? One every two years?-I felt let down,” David Gates wrote in The New York Times Book Review.

When Lorrie Moore, acclaimed author of A Gate at The Stairs and Birds of America, released Bark, her first short story collection in 16 years, on February 25th, critics were dismayed to find that such a long wait had produced such a slim body of work.

Vera by stacy schiff