Despair is a psychological novel centered on Hermann Karlovich, a self-satisfied businessman who believes he has devised the perfect crime. Convinced that a destitute drifter is his exact double, Hermann plans to murder the man and fake his own death to collect insurance money. The narrative unfolds as a first-person confession, revealing Hermann’s vanity, unreliability, and growing detachment from reality. What he sees as a work of genius is exposed as delusion, built on false perceptions and flawed logic.

The novel explores themes of narcissism, identity, madness, and artistic self-deception, while parodying the conventions of the crime novel. Ironic, claustrophobic, and darkly comic, Despair anticipates Nabokov’s later interest in unreliable narrators and the dangerous allure of aestheticized evil. 

Putnam Publishing Group, Inc., New York