Thirteen strangely wrought, ingeniously crafted stories make up Nabokov's baker's dozen. In some of these stories shadowy people pass through, cooped up by life, with nowhere to escape to. Their dreams lie stifled, smothered by routine and repetition, and frustrations lurk in all the corners. In others, elusive glimpses of fleeting happiness, which flutter away before they can be snatched, waylay their victims. Like the shimmer of the sea, the gleam of a glass caught by the sun, they sparkle brilliantly only to dissolve again. Including: Spring in Fialta, A Forgotten Poet, First Love, Signs and Symbols, The Assistant Producer, The Aurelian, Cloud Castle Lake, Conversation Piece 1945, That in Aleppo Once, Time and Ebb, Scenes from the Life of a Double Monster, Mademoiselle O and Lance
