The Flight

A young man’s passion for his father’s mistress turns tragic in this deft Russian novel by the author of modernist masterpiece The Spectre of Alexander Wolf.

“The Gazdanov revival… is nothing short of a literary event.” —Times Literary Supplement Mixing psychological drama with devastating, sunsoaked romance, this modernist take on the traditional Russian 19th-century realist novel epitomised by Tolstoy delivers a timeless statement on the tension between sensuality and duty, community and freedom.

While summering on the French Riviera, the young Seryozha secretly becomes the lover of the much older Liza—who is also his father’s mistress. As autumn approaches, they reluctantly part: Liza to return to Paris, Seryozha to take up his studies at university in London. When he finds out about their affair, Seryozha’s father attempts to convince Liza to leave his son, for the sake of the boy’s own happiness. She finally gives in—but a sudden, fatal catastrophe changes everything.

An account of twisted love and youthful disillusionment that recalls Vladimir Nabokov and Françoise Sagan, full of secrets and reversals, Gazdanov’s second novel is proof of his wide-ranging talents. Originally written before his celebrated noir experiments, The Spectre of Alexander Wolf and The Buddha’s Return, The Flight blends tragic inevitability, complex and fractured family relationships, and a whirling cast of émigrés struggling to break through each other’s solitude to make for a devastating and compelling read.