Length3h 31m
About this audiobook
Seventeen-year-old Masha has lost her mother and her hope—until Sergei Mikhailych, a family friend twice her age, walks back into her life. His quiet presence awakens something in her: first friendship, then love, then the dizzying belief that marriage will be an eternity of stolen glances and trembling hearts. It is not.
Tolstoy's luminous novella traces the arc of love from its first flush through the slow, quiet disappointment of reality. The country estate grows still. The husband retreats behind newspapers and duty. The city calls with its glitter and its dangerous glances. And Masha must ask herself: what remains when the romance has faded?
Written before Tolstoy's own marriage, Family Happiness is a work of almost unsettling prescience—a meditation on the distance between what we imagine love to be and what it becomes. Told entirely through Masha's voice, it captures the ache of growing up, the loneliness of two people who no longer understand each other, and the hard-won peace that may—or may not—be enough.
The most honest love story ever written. And the most heartbreaking.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 4.0 (18.6K)
Includes Goodreads, LibraryThing, StoryGraph, Amazon
GenreGeneral Fiction, Literary Classics
Length3 hrs 31 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1By Leo Tolstoy in Cactus catalogue:
7Chapter V
2PART ONE
8PART TWO
3Chapter I
9Chapter I
4Chapter II
10Chapter II
5Chapter III
11Chapter III
Show all chaptersShow less
6Chapter IV
12Chapter IV
More from Leo Tolstoy
The cutting of the forestLeo Tolstoy1h 36m3.3 (68)$3 · $0.00
Hadji MuradLeo Tolstoy5h 14m4.0 (19.3K)$3 · $0.00
The Kingdom of God is within youLeo Tolstoy13h 48m4.3 (8.4K)$3 · $0.00
The DevilLeo Tolstoy2h3.9 (9.9K)$3 · $0.00
Sevastopol SketchesLeo Tolstoy5h 5m4.0 (5.3K)$3 · $0.00
Two HussarsLeo Tolstoy2h 38m$2 · $0.00
Childhood - Boyhood - YouthLeo Tolstoy14h 16m4.0 (15.8K)$4 · $0.00
War and PeaceLeo Tolstoy63h 35m4.3 (424.2K)$3 · $0.00
The Kreutzer Sonata and other storiesLeo Tolstoy6h 59m4.1 (4.7K)$3 · $0.00
Anna KareninaLeo Tolstoy39h 11m4.2 (1.1M)$3 · $0.00
ResurrectionLeo Tolstoy19h 19m4.2 (35.6K)$3 · $0.00
The death of Ivan IlychLeo Tolstoy2h 27m4.2 (280.6K)$3 · $0.00
Father SergiusLeo Tolstoy1h 56m4.0 (6.8K)$2 · $0.00
WhistlerAnn Patchett10h 45m4.6 (4.6K)$29 · $0.00
Demon CopperheadBarbara Kingsolver21h 3m4.5 (949.4K)$46 · $0.00
To Kill a MockingbirdHarper Lee12h 18m4.5 (7.4M)$29 · $0.00
Remarkably Bright CreaturesShelby Van Pelt11h 17m4.4 (1.7M)$29 · $0.00
Black History CollectionFrederick Douglass, Harriet Ann Jacobs, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois27h 9m4.6 (2.6K)$18 · $0.00
The Old Man and the Sea (Annotated)Ernest Hemingway4h 27m4.6 (1.4K)$2 · $0.00
White HotIlona Andrews13h 18m4.5 (136.9K)$5 · $0.00
The Ghost by the Billabong (The Matilda Saga, #5)Jackie French14h 58m4.6 (773)$33 · $0.00
Cast in BloodMichelle Sagara16h 35m4.6 (607)$33 · $0.00
The Captain Blood Trilogy (Annotated)Rafael Sabatini29h 20m4.6 (1K)$3 · $0.00
Ship of the Line (Annotated)Cecil Louis Troughton Smith11h 13m4.6 (1K)$2 · $0.00
The George Orwell CollectionGeorge Orwell24h 46m4.5 (14.4K)$12 · $0.00
Time RegainedMarcel Proust15h 38m4.5 (9.2K)$2 · $0.00
Driving ForceElle James4h 58m4.6 (407)$20 · $0.00
When God Calls the HeartBrian Bird, Michelle Cox3h 24m4.6 (439)$10 · $0.00
Five Little IndiansMichelle Good10h 34m4.5 (64.5K)$29 · $0.00
Lolth's WarriorR. A. Salvatore13h 20m4.6 (2.4K)$33 · $0.00
The Things We Cannot SayKelly Rimmer13h 48m4.5 (359.1K)$33 · $0.00
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du BoisHonoree Fanonne Jeffers29h 49m4.5 (58K)$8 · $0.00
Going PostalTerry Pratchett11h 23m4.5 (189.9K)$29 · $0.00
To Kill a MockingbirdHarper Lee12h 18m4.5 (7.4M)$29 · $0.00
These Precious DaysAnn Patchett11h 14m4.5 (45.2K)$29 · $0.00
The Complete Histories / History Plays of William Shakespeare (Annotated)William Shakespeare29h 42m4.6 (2.3K)$1.99 · $0.00
Braving the TruthRachel Held Evans11h 31m4.7 (359)$29 · $0.00
The Old Man and the Sea (Annotated)Ernest Hemingway4h 27m4.6 (1.4K)$2 · $0.00
Twelfth Night (The Unabridged Play) + The Classic Biography (Annotated)William Shakespeare, Sidney Lee16h 38m4.6 (1.4K)$2 · $0.00
Henry V (The Play, Historical Background and Analysis of the Character in the Play)William Shakespeare, William Hazlitt8h 40m4.6 (1.3K)$1 · $0.00
H. P. LOVECRAFT Ultimate Collection: Novellas, Short Stories, Poetry & Essays (Annotated)H. P. Lovecraft12h 28m4.6 (2.3K)$2 · $0.00
Time RegainedMarcel Proust15h 54m4.5 (10.6K)$2 · $0.00
TORAH - Bilingual Edition: English/Hebrew (Annotated)Max Margolis, JPS28h 26m4.6 (1K)$2 · $0.00
Betty Crocker picture cooky bookBetty Crocker, Inc. General Mills2h 13m4.5 (6.5K)$1 · $0.00
The Complete Tales of Beatrix PotterBeatrix Potter3h 36m4.5 (75K)$3 · $0.00
Crime and Punishment (The Unabridged Garnett Translation) (Annotated)Fyodor Dostoevsky24h 25m4.5 (15.4K)$1.99 · $0.00
The North American IndianEdward S. Curtis, Frederick Webb Hodge6h4.5 (1.2K)$2 · $0.00
The Picture of Dorian Gray: The Uncensored 13 Chapter Version + The Revised 20 Chapter Version (Annotated)Oscar Wilde16h 12m4.5 (2.8K)$1.99 · $0.00
Grimoire Of The Everyday WitchIsadora Lys / Virginia Santos5h 35m4.5 (3.9K)$9 · $0.00
Winnie-the-PoohAlan Alexander Milne2h 52m4.5 (401.1K)$3 · $0.00
Sitting PrettyRebekah Taussig7h 33m4.5 (18.9K)$26 · $0.00
The Poetic Edda & The Prose EddaSnorri Sturluson, Saemund Sigfusson9h 34m4.5 (4K)$1 · $0.00
The Complete Satires & Essays of Mark Twain (Annotated)Mark Twain23h 21m4.5 (1.1K)$2 · $0.00
You may also like
KatiaLeo Tolstoy3h 46m4.0 (19.5K)$2 · $0.00
Glitter BabySusan Elizabeth Phillips14h 10m3.9 (14.9K)$33 · $0.00
Fathers and SonsIvan Turgenev9h 25m4.1 (119.7K)$10 · $0.00
Family HappinessLeo Tolstoy2h 55m4.0 (18.1K)$1 · $0.00
Washington SquareHenry James7h 15m3.7 (30.3K)$12 · $0.00
Night and DayVirginia Woolf18h 35m3.9 (11.9K)$4 · $0.00
First LoveIvan Turgenev2h 41m4.0 (72.3K)$1.20 · $0.00
Pepita Jimenez (Historical Novel)Juan Valera7h 39m3.7 (3.4K)$1 · $0.00
This side of paradiseFrancis Scott Fitzgerald9h 51m3.7 (90.8K)$4 · $0.00
Plain Tales from the HillsRudyard Kipling7h 46m3.8 (5.5K)$21 · $0.00
Salted with FireGeorge MacDonald7h 16m4.3 (359)$1 · $0.00
THE COMPLETE CLAYHANGER SERIES: Clayhanger, Hilda Lessways, These Twain & The Roll CallArnold Bennett64h 25m4.2 (1.5K)$1 · $0.00
The Magnificent AmbersonsBooth Tarkington10h 57m3.9 (15.6K)$10 · $0.00
Ayala's AngelAnthony Trollope19h 17m4.1 (2.7K)$6 · $0.00
Pepita Jimenez (Annotated)Juan Valera7h 46m3.7 (4.7K)$1.99 · $0.00
Washington SquareHenry James7h 9m3.8 (32K)$2.30
Sense and SensibilityJane Austen11h 37m4.2 (1.5M)$2.30
Watch and WardHenry James6h 49m3.0 (1.4K)$1.20 · $0.00
Chéri (Annotated)Colette6h 3m$1.99 · $0.00
The Little Russian ServantHenry Gréville35m$2 · $0.00