by Amor Towles
June 4, 2013
Consider 1930s New York: the era fascinates, and this debut novel likely will, too. Starting on New Year’s Eve in Greenwich Village, smart, cool, and ambitious Katey Kontent makes a mad dash from the secretarial pool to New York high society and starts learning that it is her choices that matter. Less fairy tale than the sort of dry-eyed look at American social structure that James or Wharton might provide, this book seems set to recall a glamorous time and place just out of reach.
Towles delivers a sophisticated and entertaining debut novel about an irresistible young woman with an uncommon sense of purpose. Elegant and captivating, “Rules of Civility” turns a Jamesian eye on how spur of the moment decisions define life for decades to come.