“I wish I had cancer.” How’s that for a salvo? If it throws you for a loop, it won’t take long before your mind begins to wonder, “What fresh hell could be more harrowing than that?” The answer, both in life and in Still Alice, is a slow and steady deterioration of the brain, the…
In 1958, Vladimir Nabokov introduced American readers to Humbert Humbert and Dolores Haze, a middle-aged man and his 12-year old nymphet—a couple who would become two of the most controversial characters in 20th century American literature with his famous love story, Lolita. One year before this, in 1957, the swashbuckling Hollywood star, Errol Flynn—known for…
