Book description
By 1910, Leo Tolstoy, the world's most famous author, had become an
almost religious figure, surrounded on his lavish estate by family and
followers alike. Set in the tumultuous last year of the count'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 enormous wealth, his
thirteen children, and a 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 condition.
Narrated in six different voices, including Tolstoy's own from his
diaries and literary works, The Last Station is a richly inventive novel
that dances bewitchingly between fact and fiction.
