THE NABOKOVS WOULD VENTURE WEST one more time before Vladimir finished the Lolita manuscript. After so many years of work—five or six, depending on who was counting and who was listening—Lolita was nearly done, despite not being anywhere close to publication. This road trip also proved to be the longest Vladimir and Véra stayed away from the East Coast. They left Ithaca in that still-reliable Oldsmobile in early April 1953. From there they headed toward Birmingham, Alabama, a pit stop en route to the Chiricahua Mountains in Arizona, where butterflies were supposed to be plentiful. What Nabokov
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