NYU MFA candidate and Goldwater Fellow Alisson Wood's BEING LOLITA, a memoir of the author's two-year relationship with her high school English teacher who seduced her by teaching her Lolita, a story he had her believe was the greatest love story of our time, which she only later learned was anything but, and how revisiting Nabokov's masterpiece allowed her to grapple with what it means to have been an unreliable narrator of her own life, exploring our shifting views of consent, male dominance, and self-perception, to Sarah Murphy at Flatiron Books.
Publication Year: 2020
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0"I wish I understood what I was giving up when I let him write our story."
Being Lolita, Alisson Wood's memoir of her teenage relationship with her high school English teacher, is anything but an easy read, but it's certainly worth the harrowing subject matter. Wood uses Vladimir Nabokov's iconic novel as a framework to explore, confess, unravel the story of what happened to her, just as her abuser used it as a framework and justification for their "love story" - and in so doing, she writes herself (and the original Lolita, Dolores Haze to give her her own name) back into the narrative. Wood's writing is as sharp, powerful, and clear as her ability to reflect on and share this part of her story; she likewise provides a thoughtful analysis of Nabokov's work and its place in our world. The result is an insightful, raw, deeply affecting exploration of the stories that are written about us, and the stories we write for ourselves.
Obviously, I would imagine, GIANT content warning for sexual abuse, as well as self-harm & suicidal thoughts. Also, for that matter, spoilers for Nabokov's Lolita.
Thank you to Flatiron Books and NetGalley for the advance review copy!
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