First published 1989
Frank Reid watches his wife board a train bound for England in March 1913, taking their three children with her. She flees their life in Moscow without explanation, leaving Frank to manage alone. The children return from the station unexpectedly, seemingly untroubled by their mother's departure and brief abandonment. Frank struggles to maintain order at home while running his printing business. His employees include Selwyn Crane, an accountant obsessed with Tolstoy who writes poetry and seeks out charitable causes with relentless determination. The print shop faces pressures from modernization and the growing instability that grips Russia. Frank wants nothing more than a peaceful, orderly existence, but his temperament makes this impossible and his country offers no refuge from chaos. Revolution looms on the horizon while Frank navigates daily life with his children, managing a household that swings between sorrow and joy. The story captures a man caught between personal crisis and historical upheaval, searching for stability in a world that refuses to provide it.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-drama, fish-out-of-water
Setting: England, Moscow, Russia
Period: 1913
188 pages · Paperback · Flamingo