The Gambler Wife

A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky

By: Andrew D. Kaufman

Narrated by: Kathleen Gati

FINALIST FOR THE PEN JACQUELINE BOGRAD WELD AWARD FOR BIOGRAPHY

“Feminism, history, literature, politics—this tale has all of that, and a heroine worthy of her own turn in the spotlight.” —Therese Anne Fowler, bestselling author of Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

A revelatory new portrait of the courageous woman who saved Dostoyevsky’s life—and became a pioneer in Russian literary history

In the fall of 1866, a twenty-year-old stenographer named Anna Snitkina applied for a position with a writer she idolized: Fyodor Dostoyevsky. A self-described “girl of the sixties,” Snitkina had come of age during Russia’s first feminist movement, and Dostoyevsky—a notorious radical turned acclaimed novelist—had impressed the young woman with his enlightened and visionary fiction. Yet in person she found the writer “terribly unhappy, broken, tormented,” weakened by epilepsy, and yoked to a ruinous gambling addiction. Alarmed by his condition, Anna became his trusted first reader and confidante, then his wife, and finally his business manager—launching one of literature’s most turbulent and fascinating marriages.

The Gambler Wife offers a fresh and captivating portrait of Anna Dostoyevskaya, who reversed the novelist’s freefall and cleared the way for two of the most notable careers in Russian letters—her husband’s and her own. Drawing on diaries, letters, and other little-known archival sources, Andrew Kaufman reveals how Anna protected her family from creditors, demanding in-laws, and her greatest romantic rival, through years of penury and exile. We watch as she navigates the writer’s self-destructive binges in the casinos of Europe—even hazarding an audacious turn at roulette herself—until his addiction is conquered. And, finally, we watch as Anna frees her husband from predatory contracts by founding her own publishing house, making Anna the first solo female publisher in Russian history.

The result is a story that challenges ideas of empowerment, sacrifice, and female agency in nineteenth-century Russia—and a welcome new appraisal of an indomitable woman whose legacy has been nearly lost to literary history.

©2021 Andrew D. Kaufman (P)2021 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“Recounts Anna’s agony in scenes as gut-wrenching as any we might encounter in her husband’s novels.” - New York Times Book Review

“The Gambler Wife is not only a much-needed act of justice; it is also profoundly entertaining, sometimes funny, and sometimes intolerably sad.” - A. N. Wilson, The Times Literary Supplement

“Fascinating [and] colorful . . . Kaufman successfully corrects biographical accounts that have 'erased' Snitkina’s flair. Highly readable, this page-turning narrative will appeal to Dostoyevsky fans and literature-lovers in general.” - Publishers Weekly

A 19th-Century Russian Eliza Hamilton

TGW is satisfyingly well-researched, vivid, and seemingly complete (40% of the book is notes/biblio). It's fitting that Dostoyevsky's real-life wife Anna would be a memorable, complex character in the canon of Russian literature. Loving wife to a gambling addict, or independent feminist? Dostoyevskaya lived to demonstrate that a question like that is a fool's choice.

***
“If he thinks I am his slave, there to obey his every whim, he makes a great mistake,” she told her diary. “It’s time he abandoned this delusion of his."
***

Kaufman places many of FD's novels in context of Anna's timeline, which gives each title an added dimension for the familiar reader. (Kaufman also provides full plot summaries for his four major titles--an upcoming spoiler is somewhat predictable if you want to skip ahead.) TGW starts out a little slow by necessity, but by the time Fydor and Anna marry early in the book I was all-in.

***
“I cannot live without you, Anya,” he told her while kissing her good night late one evening in Geneva. “It was for those like you that Christ came. I say this not because I love you, but because I know you.”
***

TGW is must-read for any Russian lit fan, and also stands on its own for the uninitiated.