The Last Station [Paperback]

'One of those rare works of fiction that manage to demonstrate both scrupulous historical research and true originality of voice and perception.' New York Times Book Review

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 condition. Narrated in six different voices, The Last Station is a richly inventive novel that dances bewitchingly between fact and fiction.

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, Sofya, and his leading disciple, Vladimir Chertkov. 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.

“Jay Parini has written a stylish, beautifully paced and utterly beguiling novel … a remarkable achievement.”
SUNDAY TIMES

“An impressively knowing and sensitive performance, a wistful late twentieth-century tribute to the giant conflicts of a more titanic age.”
OBSERVER

“'The Last Station' is a subtle masterpiece which comes to reveal an ever-deeper distinction and warmth of meaning. Tolstoy would probably have recognised the work of a true artist.”
TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Jay Parini is Axinn Professor of English at Middlebury College, Vermont. His six novels also include Benjamins Crossing and The Apprentice Lover. His volumes of poetry include The Art of Subtraction: New and Selected Poems. In addition to biographies of John Steinbeck, Robert Frost and William Faulkner, he has written a volume of essays on literature and politics, as well as The Art of Teaching. He edited the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature and writes regularly for the Guardian and other publications.