RULES OF CIVILITY by Amor Towles

Finished Mo 10/7/19

This is a trade paperback that I ordered from Amazon after reading Amor Towles novel, 'A GENTLEMAN FROM MOSCOW'. That book was a selection for the Contemporary Book Club.

The title is taken from a book written by George Washington. I believe that he copied part of it, and it was called,' The Young George Washington's RULES OF CIVILITY & DECENT BEHAVIOR IN COMPANY AND CONVERSATION. There are 110 rules, and it's included in the Appendix of the book.

Katey Kontent

Evelyn Ross

Theodore (Tinker) Grey

Katey and Evelyn are roommates and they visit a small jazz club in Greenwich Village on New Year's Eve 1937. At the nightclub they meet the young, rich, and debonair gentleman, Tinker Grey.

Leaving the nightclub Tinker drives his car into a milk truck and Eve suffers terrible facial scars. Although the sexual chemistry between Katey and Tinker is strong, Tinker takes up with Eve because he feels guilty.

Eve and Tinker take off on a whirlwind romantic tour of Europe, and they are together for months.

Tinker is not really wealthy, but he is kind of a 'kept man' by a rich, older woman who claims to be his 'godmother'.

Eve learns of Tinker's deception and splits to California to become a star. She's largely dropped from the novel at this point.

And, Tinker comes to realize the last entry in George Washington's 'Rules'.
#110- 'Labour to keep alive in your Breast that Little Spark of Celestial fire Called Conscience'.

From NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW

"In Towles’s first novel, “Rules of Civility,” his clever heroine, who grew up in Brooklyn as “Katya,” restyles herself in 1930s Manhattan as the more clubbable “Katey,” aspiring to all-American inclusion. As World War II gears up, raising the economy from bust to boom, Katey’s wit and charm lift her from a secretarial pool at a law firm to a high-profile assistant’s perch at a flashy new Condé Nast magazine. One night at the novel’s outset touches off the chain reaction that will produce both Katey’s career and her husband, and define her entire adult life. She’s swept into the satin-and-cashmere embrace of the smart set — blithe young people with names like Dicky and Bitsy and Bucky and Wallace — with their Oyster Bay mansions, their Adirondack camps, their cocktails at the St. Regis and all the fog of Fishers Island."

From the review at THE GUARDIAN

"In Towles’s first novel, “Rules of Civility,” his clever heroine, who grew up in Brooklyn as “Katya,” restyles herself in 1930s Manhattan as the more clubbable “Katey,” aspiring to all-American inclusion. As World War II gears up, raising the economy from bust to boom, Katey’s wit and charm lift her from a secretarial pool at a law firm to a high-profile assistant’s perch at a flashy new Condé Nast magazine. One night at the novel’s outset touches off the chain reaction that will produce both Katey’s career and her husband, and define her entire adult life. She’s swept into the satin-and-cashmere embrace of the smart set — blithe young people with names like Dicky and Bitsy and Bucky and Wallace — with their Oyster Bay mansions, their Adirondack camps, their cocktails at the St. Regis and all the fog of Fishers Island."

I really liked the novel, although in the middle of the book I switched over to 'THE LATE SHOW' a Michael Connolly novel that I borrowed from Janny.

RULES OF CIVILITY was a very interesting book, but I think that I liked A GENTLEMAN FROM MOSCOW just a little more.

I think that Towles will be a writer that will be remembered if he hardly writes another thing. He's already that good.