King, Queen, Knave

Of all my novels this bright brute is the gayest, Nabokov wrote of "King, Queen, Knave". Comic, sensual and cerebral, it dramatizes an Oedipal love triangle, a tragi-comedy of husband, wife and lover, through Dreyer the rich businessman, his ripe-lipped and mercenary wife Martha, and their bespectacled nephew Franz. "If a resolute Freudian manages to slip in" - Nabokov darts a glance to the reader - "he or she should be warned that a number of cruel traps have been set here and there..."