The Poet of Tolstoy Park

The Poet of Tolstoy Park: A Novel, by Sonny Brewer (2005)

When Henry Stuart finds out that he has tuberculosis, he leaves his native Idaho for the warmer shores of Alabama, where his doctor and friend believe he will live in relative comfort. The year is 1925, a time when tuberculosis is a death sentence for most who contract it. Aged 67, Henry quickly tends to his affairs and leaves for the Deep South, where he has just purchased land in the utopian community of Fairhope. It is here that he intends to live out his days.

Almost from the beginning, the former professor finds a spiritual connection to his new home. He feels a deep connection to the land, which parallels his interest in Native American philosophy. But Henry’s chief influence is Leo Tolstoy, the Russian author who believes strongly in transcending the physical and embracing the spiritual side of life.

Henry’s new life is consumed with this embrace of the spiritual, and he is conflicted between his desire to study and write, and his need to throw himself into work in order to avoid brooding on his grave condition. An autumn hurricane ravishes his new property shortly after his arrival to Fairhope, and he becomes strongly dedicated to the latter course. He works long days, when he is able, to build a new concrete home that will survive a strong storm.

To write that this is a unique story would be an understatement, but there is something strongly compelling about Brewer’s protagonist. Henry Stuart is a man whose actions are at times so incomprehensible and whose thought process is overly turgid, yet he is a highly moral man. One will be hard-pressed not to find themselves cheering for him as the story unfolds.

This book is highly recommended for adult readers. Students of religion, philosophy, and 20th century literature will find likely take an interest in this relatively short book.