cover image The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Last Year

The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Last Year

Jay Parini. Warner Books, $9.99 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-446-39295-2

Alternating narrators from Count Leo Tolstoy's household tell of his attempts to balance his philosophy of poverty and his privileged lifestyle by living humbly in his final days. ``In the end, it is not the people around him who speak most eloquently for Tolstoy, but the sincerity of his own words--and those of Parini in his kaleidoscopically rich and skillful novel,'' said PW. (Sept.)