In 1890, Anton Chekhov, already a prominent Russian literary figure, traveled 6,500 miles to Sakhalin island, off the coast of Siberia. Willing visitors to this island were rare; rather, its inhabitants were people who had been sent there: prisoners and their families, guards, soldiers, and doctors. What was it that Chekhov sought on this terrible island? Almost a century later, while on sabbatical in Italy after a troubled academic year, McConkey...