Michael Holzman's Blog

The (London) Times Literary Supplement has just published my review of Ben Macintyre's book "The Spy and the Traitor," a biography of former KGB agent Oleg Gordievsky. See: www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/private/mi... for the Internet version of the March 8, issue of TLS.

I first wrote Transgressions just for myself and a few friends and published it in 2010 in two volumes. These can still be found on the Internet as Transgressions I and II. It was then picked up by a small British publisher, Hopcyn Press, who published it as Pax 1934-1941, editing the text to conform to British spellings, punctuation and the like and making a few small changes. (And nominating it for the Booker Prize.) Recently, I decided to publish a one-volume American edition, going over the entire text, making some changes and returning it to American spelling and so forth. This 2019 edition is what I hope anyone now interested in the book will read.

Transgressions is a novel in the form of a diary of a young man from Woodstock, Vermont, who is sent to Trinity College, Cambridge, in the early 1930s. He studies languages, history and art, travels in Europe and settles in London. During the Second World War he writes political and current events commentaries. The book contains explicit descriptions of sexual acts and fine and decorative art objects.

Some characters in the book have the names of real people, such as Guy Burgess and Bernard Berenson. Others are similar to, or parallel to them. There are also greyhounds and wild cattle.

The settings, in addition to Woodstock and Cambridge, include Florence, Venice, New York, London and Northumberland.

The title refers to both political and sexual transgressions.