The Flight

The Flight, Gaito Gazdanov, Pushkin Press, £12 ISBN: 978-1-78227-162-8

WITH illicit romance in Paris and the Riviera, fabulous wealth and a hearty lust for life this story of a forbidden affair exposes the flaws of a family of Russian émigrés.
Gazdanov’s writing is inflected with hues of his adopted France in a playfulness that seems to say all is fine with the world… while all around lives and hopes are failing. The Russian names make this difficult at first but the quality of the writing encourages the reader. The themes of missing happiness and the pain of exile are ever-present but this is a tale of loves that cannot last...