![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() And this skylarking book will leave readers salivating for more. Never mind jealous detractors: virtuosity is its own reward. Her exhilarating synthesis of the classic and the modern, frivolity and fate - “Pnin” meets “The O.C.” - is a poetic act of will. And in Pessl’s case, Nabokovian doesn’t need scare quotes. “She’s the latest in a long, long line to suffer from ‘Hot Young Author Chick’ Syndrome,” one blogger grumbled another wrote in a headline, “It’s Not About Marisha Pessl’s Looks and Money - Is It?” and asked if the book would have been snapped up so quickly if Pessl hadn’t had such a “drool-worthy author photo.” But don’t hate her because she’s beautiful: her talent and originality would draw wolf whistles if she were an 86-year-old hunchbacked troll. When the news came out that a distractingly pretty actress, playwright and Barnard College graduate named Marisha Pessl, only 27, had sold her first book (which she also illustrated) - a “Nabokovian” thriller about an intellectual widower and his precocious daughter - for a substantial sum, the pick-a-little, talk-a-little publishing blog brigade went into conniptions. Whoever coined the phrase “everybody loves a winner” probably wasn’t one. ![]()
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