Alice Randall discusses her book, “Pushkin and the Queen of Spades.” She begins by explaining the plot of the novel, which follows Winsor Armstrong who is a Harvard-educated professor of Russian literature whose son, Pushkin-who she named after the Afro-Russian poet-defies her hopes to follow in her footsteps, and instead becomes a star football player and marries a Russian lap dancer. Randall goes on to note that the book comments on the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald and lists specific instances throughout the novel that relate back to various Fitzgerald works. She later discusses a theme of the book, which is “how to be a good mother after having a very bad mother.” Randall shares how she hopes that the character of Pushkin will help to create a new archetype of the sports figure as a significant businessman in the community who makes changes and is in charge of his own career. Later in the interview Randall explains how she derives her inspiration and ideas from her own experiences and studies.
Russian teachers - Fiction Mothers and sons - Fiction Football players - Fiction Interracial dating - Fiction Parent and adult child - Fiction African American families - Fiction African American women college teachers - Fiction Pushkin, Aleksandr Sergeevich, 1799-1837 - Appreciation - Fiction
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