War and Peace and Sonya

In 1862 Sonya Tolstoy married the greatest author the world has ever known. For forty-eight years they shared their lives in an enmeshed union that was both passionate and combative. Sixteen years younger than her husband, Sonya bore him thirteen children and worked for years as his copyist, rewriting countless drafts of his timeless novels. Both were mercurial and personalities and, towards the end and exhausted, Tolstoy deserted her. In War & Peace and Sonya, Judith Armstrong tells Sonya's own story, exploring the couple's devotion and ambivalence to one another, their immense passion for great literature and the creative process, and showing us just how remarkably true to life fiction can be