Between Dog & Wolf

Alternating between the voices of an old, one-legged knife-sharpener, a game warden who writes poetry, and Sokolov himself, this language-driven novel unfolds a story of life on the upper Volga River, in which time, characters, and death all prove unstable. The one constant is the Russian landscape, where the Volga is a more-crossable River Styx, especially when it freezes in winter.