by Ken Kalfus
First published 2011
In 1910, a crowd gathers at the remote Russian railway station of Astapovo to witness the final days of the dying Tolstoy. The great writer has fled his wife and his contradictory life to reach this small outpost. Among the journalists, devotees, and opportunists forming this early media circus, three men cross paths. Nikolai Gribshin works as a young cinematographer for the French company Pathé. Vorobev has developed a scientific method to embalm corpses so they appear startlingly alive. The third man is Stalin, the future Bolshevik leader. Each pursues projects that will define the emerging twentieth century: cinema's power to capture reality, the drive to preserve life's appearance, and the ambition to forge a new revolutionary society. Years later, during Russia's bloody civil war, the three men meet again. Their early hopes for the future now reveal their darkest possibilities.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, russian-literature
Vibes: atmospheric, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Astapovo, Russia
Period: 1910, Russian Civil War
348 pages · Paperback · Tusquets Editores