"Rules of Civility": money, manners and Manhattan

Eight of us met for September's Book Club in a slightly cool Infinity Garden, and Alice introduced Rules of Civility by US author Amor Towles.

Towles studied English literature at university and planned to be a writer, but first had a successful New York career in investment banking. Rules of Civility is his first novel and was published in 2011 when he was 47. He is probably best known for A Gentleman in Moscow (a previous Book Club read – if you haven't read it, you really should!).

Thanks to Alice for much of the following account.

The novel is narrated by 25-year-old Katey Kontent (accent on the second syllable). She is a second-generation Russian immigrant to New York, an impecunious typist and then a secretary, with her friend Eve Ross. Katey is clever, hard-working and ambitious, while Eve is perhaps prettier but more untethered.

On New Year's Eve 1937, they meet the wealthy Tinker Grey in a  jazz bar and enter a world of money, privilege, parties and social ambition. They meet a number of Tinker's friends, and notably the older and elegant Anne Grandyn, introduced as Tinker's godmother – though we gradually realise their relationship isn't quite as this sounds.

The main action takes us through 1938, although there is an introductory scene in 1966 when the then happily married and successful Katey and her husband see two photographs of Tinker in an art gallery and we discover that he later lost his money and success (but we never quite know how).

We all agreed that the writing is stylish and witty. Towles, we learned, spent a year revising and refining the book, and it rewards careful reading.

We had varied views of some of the characters (such as Tinker's curmudgeonly artist brother), but we all enjoyed the lively and powerful evocation of 1930s Manhattan.

At first the plot seems to focus on having a good time, romantic entanglements and complications, gaining and losing money, but we thought that barely below this surface it raises issues of class, identity, friendship, luck, and the coincidences and choices that shape our lives. Both Katey and Eve seem to later reinvent themselves while the apparently successful Tinker will fail. Which raised an interesting question for debate: is it possible to change our destinies?

Interestingly, the author's afterword refers to the Depression and some of its effects, yet these are barely touched on in the book (nor are the after-effects of the First World War or the impending Second World War). 

Our next meeting will be on Wednesday, 14th October when Nigel will introduce London and the South East by David Szalay.