Nabokov's fourteenth novel - the first written after "Lolita" - presents itself as the annotated edition of a 999-line poem titled "Pale Fire," composed by John Shade, a thoughtful New England poet and professor who was shot by a murderer before he could write down the final, thousandth line. The editor is his colleague, neighbor, and supposed friend Charles Kinbote. However, Kinbote's commentary misses the serious nature of Shade's poem, which deals with the suicide of his troubled and ugly daughter, death, and the possibility of an afterlife, in a manner that is both brazen and grotesque. Kinbote reveals himself to be the exiled king of Zembla, Charles the Beloved, who could not persuade Shade to write his life story and now presents it in the form of notes on "Pale Fire.".