Good Reads / Community Library Notes
Rules of Civility
Amor Towles
Review by Priscilla Comen
Rules of Civility
Amor Towles
Review by Priscilla Comen
Rules of Civility, by Amor Towles, is the story of Katey, Tinker, Evie and Wallace. But mostly it’s about Manhattan, the city where anything can happen and does. On the last night of 1937, narrator Katey is with her friend Eve at a basement night club in Greenwich Village. Eve and Katey are broke when into the bar walks a man in a cashmere coat. He sits nearby. The girls invite him to their table. This is Theodore Grey. His friends call him Tinker. When they can’t get champagne he disappears and comes back with a bottle. They get him laughing and make New Year’s resolutions. He lives at Central Park West. They go to a movie theater, sit in the last row and drink rye from a pint.
Next day Katey goes to work. She’s a typist in a typing pool. She goes to a small diner for lunch and in walks Tinker. He’s a stock broker nearby. Friday night he picks the girls up in a silver MBZ coupe. Eve says she’ll drive. She zig zags through traffic “like a shark through water,” and goes to Club 21. They order martinis and the olives perch on each glass like an “oar on the hull of a rowboat.”
Tinker’s godmother, Anne Grandyn, comes to their table. She’s wearing emerald earrings the size of gumdrops. On their way to another club they are hit by a truck on the icy street. Eve is taken to hospital by ambulance. She had gone through the windshield and her face is a mess. The doctor thinks she’s Tinker’s wife.
Two months later, Katey gets a phone call from Tinker. He asks her to come stay with Eve while he goes to the office. She says sure. Eve’s father arrives from Indiana. She refuses to go back there. Tinker offers his apartment with an elevator, a doorman, and kitchen service. Eve goes for that. Katey undresses Eve and puts her to bed. Eve doesn’t want small talk so Katey reads to her, first from Virginia Woolf, then from Hemingway.
On Tinker’s desk is a book of “Rules of Civility,” one hundred fifty, from one hundred fifty years ago that Tinker’s mother had given him. In the master bedroom, a closet holds clothes Tinker has bought for Eve. The following Monday, Tinker takes Eve to Palm Beach, Florida.
Later in the year, Katey is invited to a dinner party at Eve’s and Tinker’s apartment with Wallace Wolcott whom Katey thinks was invited for her benefit. Both Eve and Tinker look tan and fit, she wearing huge diamond earrings she’d found in the bedside table. They talk about hunting and guns. Tinker tells Katey that he and Eve are “making a go of it.”
In the Spring, Fran who works at Katey’s office, invites her for a drink at an Irish bar. At a table in the back, she meets Hank, Tinker’s brother. He’s an artist and they talk about Cezanne and the definition of art.
In June, Evie picks Katey up at work in a brown Bentley with white wall tires as spotless as Fred Astaire’s spats. It’s Eve’s twenty-fifth birthday and Wallace has given her the Bentley for the day. The next day Katey goes to the office and quits. She sees Mason Tate about a better job. She’s hired as Tate’s assistant for his new journal covering the city’s lovers, letters, and losers.
Later, Katey runs into Wallace at a party with fireworks. The following Sunday they go shooting. He describes all the guns. At a pond he shows her how to shoot clay pigeons. The next week they go the Metropolitan Museum and look at guns. Wallace joins the Republicans in the Spanish-American war.
A few nights later, the police arrive at Katey’s apartment and take her to Evie who is asleep in a cell. She’d been picked up in an alley, drunk and without ID. Katey puts her to bed and the next day, Evie flies to California with a diamond ring Tinker had given her. She’s refused his proposal but kept the ring.
At a bookstore, Katey buys a copy of Rules of Civility by Washington. The final rule is to keep alive your conscience. Tinker meets his brother Hank and gives him an envelope of cash. Hank throws it back at him and knocks Tinker to the ground.
At her job at Mason Tate’s, Katey has a great idea for a cover story for his first issue: interviews with ex-doormen at the top hotels in the city Hundreds of men come to testify for her.
On a winter day, Anne Grandyn comes to Katey’s and tells her everything. Anne is at the root of this drama with Tinker. He’s poor as a church mouse in reality. The money, the apartment and the clothes are all Anne’s.
The day after Christmas, Mason Tate calls Katey into his office and congratulates her, gives her a proof of the cover and a ham from the mayor. He tells her to thank her sponsor who recommended her for the job. It was Anne Grandyn. At her apartment, she gets a package from Wallace. He’d been killed in the war, but sent a present earlier. It’s a Remington Rifle.
Author Towels lists all of the Rules at the end of the book. Does Katey ever see Tinker again? Does she come into money and mimic the people who have everything? What happens to Tinker and Hank? Find out in the delightful story of a year in Manhattan at your Mendocino Community Library. It
Next day Katey goes to work. She’s a typist in a typing pool. She goes to a small diner for lunch and in walks Tinker. He’s a stock broker nearby. Friday night he picks the girls up in a silver MBZ coupe. Eve says she’ll drive. She zig zags through traffic “like a shark through water,” and goes to Club 21. They order martinis and the olives perch on each glass like an “oar on the hull of a rowboat.”
Tinker’s godmother, Anne Grandyn, comes to their table. She’s wearing emerald earrings the size of gumdrops. On their way to another club they are hit by a truck on the icy street. Eve is taken to hospital by ambulance. She had gone through the windshield and her face is a mess. The doctor thinks she’s Tinker’s wife.
Two months later, Katey gets a phone call from Tinker. He asks her to come stay with Eve while he goes to the office. She says sure. Eve’s father arrives from Indiana. She refuses to go back there. Tinker offers his apartment with an elevator, a doorman, and kitchen service. Eve goes for that. Katey undresses Eve and puts her to bed. Eve doesn’t want small talk so Katey reads to her, first from Virginia Woolf, then from Hemingway.
On Tinker’s desk is a book of “Rules of Civility,” one hundred fifty, from one hundred fifty years ago that Tinker’s mother had given him. In the master bedroom, a closet holds clothes Tinker has bought for Eve. The following Monday, Tinker takes Eve to Palm Beach, Florida.
Later in the year, Katey is invited to a dinner party at Eve’s and Tinker’s apartment with Wallace Wolcott whom Katey thinks was invited for her benefit. Both Eve and Tinker look tan and fit, she wearing huge diamond earrings she’d found in the bedside table. They talk about hunting and guns. Tinker tells Katey that he and Eve are “making a go of it.”
In the Spring, Fran who works at Katey’s office, invites her for a drink at an Irish bar. At a table in the back, she meets Hank, Tinker’s brother. He’s an artist and they talk about Cezanne and the definition of art.
In June, Evie picks Katey up at work in a brown Bentley with white wall tires as spotless as Fred Astaire’s spats. It’s Eve’s twenty-fifth birthday and Wallace has given her the Bentley for the day. The next day Katey goes to the office and quits. She sees Mason Tate about a better job. She’s hired as Tate’s assistant for his new journal covering the city’s lovers, letters, and losers.
Later, Katey runs into Wallace at a party with fireworks. The following Sunday they go shooting. He describes all the guns. At a pond he shows her how to shoot clay pigeons. The next week they go the Metropolitan Museum and look at guns. Wallace joins the Republicans in the Spanish-American war.
A few nights later, the police arrive at Katey’s apartment and take her to Evie who is asleep in a cell. She’d been picked up in an alley, drunk and without ID. Katey puts her to bed and the next day, Evie flies to California with a diamond ring Tinker had given her. She’s refused his proposal but kept the ring.
At a bookstore, Katey buys a copy of Rules of Civility by Washington. The final rule is to keep alive your conscience. Tinker meets his brother Hank and gives him an envelope of cash. Hank throws it back at him and knocks Tinker to the ground.
At her job at Mason Tate’s, Katey has a great idea for a cover story for his first issue: interviews with ex-doormen at the top hotels in the city Hundreds of men come to testify for her.
On a winter day, Anne Grandyn comes to Katey’s and tells her everything. Anne is at the root of this drama with Tinker. He’s poor as a church mouse in reality. The money, the apartment and the clothes are all Anne’s.
The day after Christmas, Mason Tate calls Katey into his office and congratulates her, gives her a proof of the cover and a ham from the mayor. He tells her to thank her sponsor who recommended her for the job. It was Anne Grandyn. At her apartment, she gets a package from Wallace. He’d been killed in the war, but sent a present earlier. It’s a Remington Rifle.
Author Towels lists all of the Rules at the end of the book. Does Katey ever see Tinker again? Does she come into money and mimic the people who have everything? What happens to Tinker and Hank? Find out in the delightful story of a year in Manhattan at your Mendocino Community Library. It