Salon

Last week, The New York Times reviewed the debut novel by a young horror writer named Joe Hill, and quite matter-of-factly mentioned that "it would be much easier to compare Mr. Hill's work to Stephen King's if Stephen King were not his actual father." Russian media outlets reported this as if a huge secret had been revealed. In fact, Variety had said it loud and clear almost one year ago, and one of Hill's colleagues had noted in his blog that it was "the worst-kept secret" in the industry. In any case, this doesn't seem like a case of publishing-world nepotism; Hill's talent as a horror writer appears to be genuine.

Unlike acting, writing doesn't seem to be a family thing, perhaps because it's too personal. In Russia, there have been several dynasties where one family member won fame through literature, while others stayed in the public eye for other reasons. One such example is the Mikhalkov clan. Its patriarch, the nonagenarian Sergei Mikhalkov, is a famous children's poet; he is the author of endless fairy tales, parables, screenplays, song lyrics and three national anthems (from the Stalin version of 1944 to the present-day version, written in 2001). His two sons, Nikita Mikhalkov and Andrei Konchalovsky, are both movie directors; so is his grandson Yegor Konchalovsky. A thinly disguised Mikhalkov dynasty was the subject matter of "Shishkin Wood," a recent novel by Alexander Chervinsky, while back in Soviet times everyone knew the epigram attributed to actor Valentin Gaft: "Russia, don't you feel the terrible itch? It's the three Mikhalkovs crawling on you."

Another famous family is, of course, the Tolstoys. This lineage gave Russia three authors of the very first caliber. Apart from Leo, who doesn't need any introduction, there were also Alexei K. Tolstoy, a first-rate poet with the best sense of humor in all of Russian literature, and Alexei N. Tolstoy, the author of several sweeping historical novels and the children's book "Buratino," a free retelling of "Pinocchio." The latter's granddaughter is the well-known writer, essayist and television personality Tatyana Tolstaya -- so in this case, the literary gene kicked in after all.

It doesn't end there. Artemy Lebedev, Russia's best-known web designer and the founder of an eponymous design studio, is Tatyana Tolstaya's son. This secret was revealed by television journalist Dmitry Dibrov while Lebedev was a guest on his late-night talk show. Lebedev -- a household name among tech-savvy Russians and a man who fiercely prides himself on being self-made -- kept his cool, but in the course of the show he manipulated Dibrov into looking awkward and misinformed. So, even if there's no direct inheritance of literary talent, there's certainly some kind of panache and popularity that runs in families.