It focuses on two years of Anton Chekhov's life at the beginning of his literary stardom in Russia, 1886 and 1887. At the time, Chekhov was 26 years old, a bachelor, a practicing doctor, and in constant debt because he had assumed the role of breadwinner for his immediate family. He wrote for the newspapers, which means he wrote his stories quickly, prolifically, and on deadline, mostly for the money. The book premises that, together with his extensively collected letters, you can piece together how his fiction was inspired by his life. This turns out to be more tedious than it sounds—it would be one thing if his seven stories or so-a-month pace produced one masterpiece after another, but this is more like if Lorne Michaels sat you down and explained the origins and production of every SNL sketch aired from 1976 to 1978: after a certain point you just don't care. I will grant the tightened focus gives you a much more nuanced picture of the overworked, tuberculosis-hiding human being than you tend to get elsewhere. And there's some insight into how he could keep the quality of his writing high despite publishing at least 176 pieces in those two years.* And Blaisdell often folds in fun, quippy, "excitable lit teacher" interjections (which I personally found irritating) to break up his lengthy story summaries. But, in total, it just all feels like empty speculation: did he write a story about a murder-suicide just because he happened to be depressed that week?; did the dog Kashtanka leave the circus and return to her abusive owner because, like Chekhov, she disliked fame? Maybe. And, also, so what? Chekhov is an extraordinary writer because of how perceptively he captures the nuances of human behavior—in comparison, everything else seems cartoonish—and you see that demonstrated here in excerpt after excerpt. But for a book that explicitly aims to shine a light on that sensitivity, you end everything feeling somewhat unsatisfied—How did Chekhov become so perceptive, you ask? Well, apparently, it was because he was really, really good at noticing things. Two stars.

*"Chekhov determinedly resisted writing fine quotable sentences. Wit and wisdom were to be suppressed in the service of description, so that only the description left its impression."