As the son of a mother of Russian ancestry and a celebrated writer himself, Louis Simpson is well qualified to write about the popular Russian writer Anton Chekhov. Simpson was born in Kingston, Jamaica, West Indies, in 1923, to Aston Simpson, a lawyer, and Rosalind Marantz Simpson, a World War I émigré and actress. His father was successful, and the Simpsons led a privileged life, with a large house, and maids, cooks, chauffeurs, and assorted other servants. In Simpson's own words they lived as "well-to-do colonials." His mother's storytelling was an early influence on Simpson's writing. She told stories about growing up inPoland and she told fairytales. Simpson's childhood desire, in fact, was not to be a poet but to write stories.

Educated atMunro College, referred to by islanders as the "Eton of Jamaica," the young Simpson read English literature and English history, and cultivated...