Alyson Waters has a fantastic translation of Eric Chevillard’s Prehistoric Times, which was published a couple of years back by Archipelago Books. I liked it so much that I reviewed it. Here is the first paragraph: “Under the influence of having just completed this book—and let me note at the outset that the influence is… Continue reading Prehistoric Times
Category: Latest Post
More Substance
Okay, yes, that last post was a little fluffy, even if the quote is from a weighty personage, so here’s a bit more substance. In the book’s introduction, I make an extended comparison of the images of the U.S. and the Russian Empire at about the time that Alexis de Tocqueville made the following memorable… Continue reading More Substance
Looking up to her window
In looking for images for the book cover for The Woman in the Window, I stumbled upon something both surprising and depressing at the same time. Most of the images that come up through the various major search engines if you enter “the woman in the window” are of a particular sort. I’m not talking… Continue reading Looking up to her window
The Man Between the Woman in the Window
One of the reasons The Woman in the Window took so long to finish is that I was always working on other things at the same time. I think all seven of the books I’ve translated came out during the time I was writing WiW, suggesting that it might be a very good thing for… Continue reading The Man Between the Woman in the Window
Dangerous Post-Project Time
I’m remembering a passage from Notes from Underground that I’m choosing right now not to go look up because I’m writing and have put a do-not-disturb sign on my door (which means you, too, Dostoevsky!) in which the U-man wonders if maybe people sometimes put off finishing things on purpose, maybe out of fear, as… Continue reading Dangerous Post-Project Time
Here she is and I love her
The Book Tour
After you’ve written it and it’s been published, you’re not going to make big changes anymore. You can’t stop the presses. They’ve already stopped. A second printing might happen, but it’s far away and really a long shot for a pointy headed book like yours. There are people who will be interested and they will… Continue reading The Book Tour
The publisher’s website
I have now received the page proofs from The Woman in the Window — hurray for page proofs! — as well as the link for the publisher’s new website for the book, which is here. I now need to provide some links that are recommended by the author. I have to decide what the author… Continue reading The publisher’s website
The jacket cover, etc.
I’ve just sent a suggested revised version of the short description that will go on all the promotional materials for the book, and here it is: In The Woman in the Window: Commerce, Consensual Fantasy, and the Quest for Masculine Virtue in the Russian Novel, Russell Scott Valentino offers pioneering new insights into the historical… Continue reading The jacket cover, etc.
This other book
On a recent trip back to Iowa for two MFA thesis defenses in one afternoon (congratulations to my now former students, Alex and Beatrice!), my 12-year-old son recommended for us, and his 10-year-old brother, the book Magyk, by Angie Sage, so we brought it along. Once in a while when you listen to something on… Continue reading This other book
Russell Scott Valentino 