Rules Of Civility by Amor Towles

"In our twenties, when there is still so much time ahead of us, time that seems ample for a hundred indecisions, for a hundred visions and revisions—we draw a card, and we must decide right then and there whether to keep that card and discard the next, or discard the first card and keep the second. And before we know it, the deck has been played out and the decisions we have just made will shape our lives for decades to come.” - Amor Towles, Rules of Civility

Amor Towles is a critically acclaimed internationally best selling author and so I have been meaning to read him.  I thought I would begin with A Gentleman In Moscow but Rules Of Civilty is a shorter read.  And Olive from ABookOlive has raved about Rules of Civility on YouTube.  She has read this book nine times and always finds something new.  And so I was curious.

Rules of Civility is set in NYC.  And when the novel begins it is the 1960's and Katey Kontent and her husband are at the Museum of Modern Art viewing a photography exhibit by Walker Evans that he took of people riding the subways during the late 1930's.  

As Katey (who is the narrator of Rules Of Civility) looks at these photos she spots a photo  of someone she once knew, Tinker Grey. The first photograph of Tinker is from 1938.  He is handsome, young and wealthy.  But then she spots a second photo of Tinker from 1939 and it's clear that in the space of a year Tinker has come down in the world financially. He's poor but paradoxically he also looks younger and more at peace with himself.  

The rest of the novel transports us back to 1938 when Katey was 25, living in Manhattan and rooming with her friend Eve Ross.  Both girls decide on New Year's Eve, as 1938 approaches, to go to a jazz club which is where they first meet Tinker (Theodore) Grey.  As Katey tells us:

"He was terrific looking.  An upright five foot ten, dressed in black tie with a coat draped over his arm, he had brown hair and royal blue eyes and a small star-shaped blush at the center of each cheek. You could just picture his forebear at the helm of the Mayflower—with a gaze trained brightly on the horizon and hair a little curly from the salt sea air. —Dibs, said Eve" 

It will be through meeting Tinker that Katey and Eve enter NYC's high society.  Wealthy young people who live on Central Park West, drive expensive cars, wear the latest fashions and dine at The El Morocco, The Rainbow Room, 21, The Explorer Club.  Amor Towles through his narrator Katey Kontent goes into great detail describing this world.  Katey is both critical of it but also hooked.  

And to be frank the book by going into so much detail about the expensive restaurants, the clothes, the beautiful apartments, the parties etc was dragging for me.  I wasn't sensing a plot.  But its around page 240 that a truth is revealed about Tinker which for me was worth waiting for and the rest of the novel was a very fast read.  

Tinker Grey went from a character I liked and felt bad for at times to a fascinating character that I ended up being smitten with.  I finished the novel wanting to know what happened to him and how his life turned out.  I hope Amor Towles will one day tell us and because of Tinker I am giving Rules of Civility 4 stars.