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Book Summary and Reviews of White Walls by Tatyana Tolstaya

White Walls by Tatyana Tolstaya

White Walls

Collected Stories

by Tatyana Tolstaya

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  • Published:
  • Apr 2007, 416 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

The wonderful verve, unflagging verbal invention, and wicked charm that Tatyana Tolstaya brings to the short story have earned her a devoted audience all over the world. Edna O’Brien has called her “an enchantress.” Anita Desai has spoken of her work’s “richness and ardent life.” Stemming from a Russian tradition of heartbreak and humor, mixing harsh realism and disconcerting fantasy with lyrical abandon, Tolstaya is the natural successor to the Bulgakov of The Master and Margarita and the Nabokov of Pnin. In these pages we meet Denisov, who dreams of composing a treatise that will prove the metaphysical impossibility of Australia; Natasha, who searches not only Leningrad but her memory for a great love she knows she once had. Tolstaya’s gift for characterization is unequaled, and again and again she shows how the extraordinary will suddenly erupt in the midst of ordinary life.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Beautiful, imaginative and disconcerting, Tolstaya's Russia is a labyrinth of treasures and horrors." - PW.

"Children, old folks and the struggling in-betweens-Tolstaya sees into all their hearts. Remarkable." - Kirkus.

This information about White Walls was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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More Information

A paperback original from Tolstoy's great-grandniece, a longtime New Yorker fiction contributor. The collection includes her two previous story collections, On the Golden Porch and Sleepwalker in a Fog, along with more recent work.

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