Saunders introduces himself as a 'vaudevillian' writing teacher and frames the Russian stories as quiet resistance literature.

Marya, a lonely provincial schoolteacher, rides a cart to collect her salary and meets the wealthy bachelor Hanov on the road.

Marya glimpses a train passenger who resembles her dead mother, briefly restoring her sense of herself as a hopeful Moscow girl.

Yashka abandons himself entirely to his song, moving every patron in the Cozy Corner — even the feared Wild Gentleman — to tears.

Olenka marries Kukin the theater director and adopts his interests entirely, then receives news of his sudden death by misspelled telegram.

Olenka marries the prosperous lumberyard owner Pustavalov; after Pustavalov dies unexpectedly, she begins a discreet affair with Smirnin.

Vasili, determined to buy land before competitors can, insists on traveling through a dangerous nighttime blizzard against all advice.

Alone in the sledge, Vasili decides to abandon Nikita in the freezing snow and rides off into the storm on Mukhorty.

Vasili finds the dying Nikita and covers him with his own body; Vasili dies through the night while Nikita survives.

Kovalyov wakes to find his nose missing; he then discovers it in a church, disguised as a high-ranking official.

A police inspector returns Kovalyov's intercepted nose, but it cannot be reattached; Kovalyov wakes one morning to find it fully restored.

Ivan and Burkin take shelter at Alyohin's farmhouse, where all three friends take an exuberant swim in the pond in the rain.

Ivan tells Alyohin and Burkin about visiting his brother Nikolay's farm and finding the long-prized gooseberries disappointingly sour.

Alyosha slips from a roof while clearing snow, is hospitalized, prays with a priest, and dies looking startled and amazed.

Saunders closes the book by urging aspiring writers to take only what is useful from his advice and go forth and write.

George Saunders opens the book by introducing himself as a writing teacher and framing seven Russian stories as quiet resistance literature worth careful study. Each story then unfolds through its most decisive moment: Marya's sudden vision of her dead mother, Yashka's overwhelming song, Olenka's serial devotions and losses, and Vasili's fatal sacrifice on a frozen steppe. The Nose follows Kovalyov's surreal humiliation and miraculous restoration, while Gooseberries delivers Ivan's impassioned but complicated argument against complacent happiness. Alyosha the Pot closes the sequence with a peasant boy's stoic death, leaving readers to wonder whether his goodness was noble or merely submission. Saunders then closes the book by returning to aspiring writers and urging them simply to go forth and write.

The headline moments across every story in the book.

Saunders interrupts 'In the Cart' repeatedly to show how each new detail about Marya shifts and deepens the reader's understanding of her.

A peasant in the teahouse apologizes to Marya for cursing in her presence, revealing how far she has fallen socially.

The horse balks while crossing a swollen stream; Marya's dress and package get soaked and she scolds Semyon angrily.

The contractor delivers a dazzling, virtuosic singing performance that impresses the Cozy Corner patrons but fails to move them emotionally.

After Yashka is declared the winner, the narrator leaves the Cozy Corner immediately to preserve the memory before drunkenness ruins it.

A boy calls out repeatedly for his brother Antropka to come home, warning that their father is ready to beat him.

Smirnin, separated from his wife and son, rents a wing of Olenka's house; Olenka urges him to reconcile with his family.

Smirnin's affair with Olenka ends when his regiment is transferred; she ages rapidly and is overcome by frightening emptiness.

Smirnin returns reconciled with his wife; his family moves into Olenka's house, and she devotes herself entirely to his son Sasha.

Nikita saddles Mukhorty the horse for the journey; Vasili's young son rides the sledge blades until Vasili sends him home.

Vasili and Nikita reach the village of Grishkino, where a peasant gives directions but urges them strongly to stay the night.

Vasili and Nikita warm themselves at a wealthy acquaintance's home; Nikita refuses the vodka he is offered, having quit drinking.

Kovalyov is turned away from the chief of police, then refused a newspaper advertisement about his nose by a polite official.

Ivan passionately urges Alyohin and Burkin to 'Do good!'; both men find his speech tedious and think about other things entirely.

Alyosha's employer reluctantly buys him new boots to replace his worn-out pair, then deducts the full cost from Alyosha's wages.

This pool traces the supporting moments that give each major story its texture and meaning, moving through the book from first story to last. In 'In the Cart,' a rough teahouse stop and a balky horse reveal the precariousness of Marya's social position. In 'The Singers,' the contractor's hollow bravura and the drunken aftermath of Yashka's triumph frame the competition's deeper emotional stakes. Olenka's quiet advisory role with Smirnin, her visible decline after his departure, and his eventual return map the full arc of 'The Darling.' The journey in 'Master and Man' is built from smaller ordeals — Nikita saddling the horse, the village of Grishkino, and the warmth of a stranger's household — before catastrophe strikes. 'The Nose' reveals the comic bureaucratic obstacles Kovalyov faces, and 'Gooseberries' ends with Ivan's moral sermon falling flat on his friends. The pool closes with a small but telling scene from 'Alyosha the Pot' that establishes Alyosha's exploited position from the very start.

The scenes behind the scenes across every story.

Saunders argues that active close reading cultivates the mental capacity to resist manipulative agendas and shallow 'information bursts.'

Saunders cuts 'In the Cart' before Marya's vision of her mother and asks readers what the story would lose without that moment.

Saunders recalls writing minimal, lifeless imitation-Hemingway stories for years before discovering his own voice was comic and experimental.

Saunders compares writing to building Lego constructions with his children, where each addition leads naturally and intuitively to the next.

Smirnin snaps at Olenka for joining his work conversations, marking the first significant crack in her lifelong pattern of devotion.

Nikita stumbles down the edge of a ravine in the dark; both men accept they must spend the night where they are.

Vasili makes himself a bed inside the sledge alone, leaving no room for Nikita, who digs a snow hole at its base.

Nikita, believing he is dying after Vasili rides off, comforts himself with thoughts of God, his 'Chief Master,' and loses consciousness.

Vasili, lost alone in the blizzard, prays in terror but realizes that church icons and rituals cannot save him in the storm.

Saunders argues that Tolstoy's portrayal of Nikita as purely saintly reflects an unconscious condescension toward peasants and proposes a rewrite.

Barber Ivan Yakovlevich finds an unfamiliar nose baked into his morning bread and recognizes it as belonging to his client Kovalyov.

Ivan Yakovlevich finally drops the nose into the Neva River to dispose of it, but is immediately stopped by a policeman.

Saunders recalls hearing Tobias Wolff read Chekhov stories aloud to students, an experience that transformed his previously low opinion of Chekhov.

Alyosha falls in love with Ustinya the cook and proposes marriage, but his father forbids it after the merchant's wife informs him.

Saunders writes that working on this book renewed his conviction that he wants to devote his entire life to fiction writing.

This pool weaves together the pivotal internal shifts in the stories with Saunders's own moments of discovery as a writer and teacher. Saunders's early insights — that close reading resists manipulation, that voice is found through revision, and that writing grows like a Lego structure — frame the whole book's argument. Within the stories, the turning points are often quiet: Smirnin's irritation at Olenka exposes the limit of her devotion, and Nikita and Vasili each face a private reckoning in the dark of the snowstorm. 'The Nose' begins with the absurd but telling moment the barber discovers the nose in his bread, and Saunders's encounter with Tobias Wolff reading Chekhov aloud marks a personal turning point that shapes the entire Gooseberries chapter. The pool closes with Alyosha's forbidden love and Saunders's renewed conviction, having written this book, that fiction is still the work he wants to do with his life.

Key decisions, discoveries, and craft revelations from Saunders and the stories.