Jay Parini

Set in the tumultuous last year of Leo Tolstoy's life, The Last Station centres on the battle for his soul waged by his wife and his leading disciple. Torn between his professed doctrine of poverty and chastity on the one hand and the reality of his life of hedonism on the other, Tolstoy makes a dramatic flight from his home. Too ill to continue beyond the tiny station of Astapovo, he believes he is dying alone, while outside over one hundred newspapermen are awaiting hourly reports on his condi tion. Narrated in six different voices, The Last Station is a richly inventive novel that dances bewitchingly between fact and fiction.