Татьяна Толстая

Tatiana Tolstaia

Angels, imaginary friends, near-saints, shades and ber-ogres fall to Earth among ordinary Russians and routinely succeed in whetting the imagination in this sparkling collection from Tolstoy's great-grandniece, a longtime New Yorker fiction contributor. In "The Circle," Vassily Mikailovich (Tolstaya wryly leaves him without a surname) turns 60 and finds little behind or ahead of him, despite meeting the ghost of former lover Isolde.

Collected Stories

White Walls

Rowena Wiseman

Every once in a while I come across a book and think this is the way I want to write ... and this is how I feel with Tatyana Tolstoya. I don't even know the name of what it is that she does - it's impressionistic perhaps - but sometimes, when I'm sitting here at my desk, I'll try and push myself to write what I'm now calling a 'Tolstoya' sentence ... 

'White Walls' brings together two of her previous short story collections 'On the Golden Porch' and 'Sleepwalker in a Fog'. I'd been introduced to 'On the Golden Porch' back at university when I studied Russian Lit, and recently re-read it, and I must say I enjoyed these stories more than the 'Sleepwalker in a Fog' stories. Highlights are 'Hunting the Wooly Mammoth' with the unforgettable line 'She lay in the tent totally miserable, hating the two-bearded Vladimir, and wanted to get married to him as soon as possible.', 'Okkervil River' (inspired the band of the same name), 'A Clean Sheet' and 'Peters'. From the 'Sleepwalker in a Fog' collection 'The Poet and the Muse' is the most memorable - classic Tolstoya, love gone sour. Would have liked to have five starred all this, but I was let down slightly by the second half.

White Walls Collected Stories

Reviews