Eve In Hollywood by Amor Towles

Like millions of readers, I loved, loved, loved 2011's

bestseller, The Rules of Civility. First-time author Amor Towles burst onto the scene, fully-formed, and the book was a huge success. It was a fine story with great characters told extremely well.  

(You can read my full post about it here: http://goo.gl/iMj18Y).

In the book, there is a point where one of the main characters, the spirited Evelyn Ross, leaves Manhattan for Chicago only to turn up in Hollywood. When next we meet her, she offers little about her time out West. With Eve in Hollywood, now we know.

Towles said he felt no need to write any more about Katey and Tinker but "it was Eve who was pestering" him. These six stories evoke Eve's exploits from her train trip on the Golden State Limited to the movie set of Gone With The Wind and the people she meets along the way. I was especially taken with the aging actor she meets in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel.  Best of all, I was more than happy to slip into the warm, comforting bath that is Towles' luxurious almost musical prose, sparkling sense of setting and rich detail. It is a slim volume but most worthy. 

If there is one problem with the book, it has nothing to do with the writing or the story. Thus far, Penguin has chosen to make it available as an e-book only release.  Now the esteemed publisher was kind enough to allow me access to the book via NetGalley and I thank them heartily. However, this was a first for me as I don't read books on my computer, my phone or a reader. The experience was okay since the story was so terrific but I want a copy of this book in BOOK form. Maybe they think it's a tough sell at less than 100 pages long but I'm sure some lovely cover art on paper over board and a heavy-bonded paper could bulk the thing up and make a handsome little volume. There are readers who would be all too happy to purchase several copies to give to friends, myself included. It's a great gift. There's money to be made. There is an established audience. How about it Penguin? Fourth quarter is almost here. 

The Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

I have procrastinated on this post because I want to write it perfectly.  The problem is I simply can't.  There is nothing in my tiny writing arsenal that will do justice to how good I believe this book is.  Instead I will gush.

This was one of the big buzz books, post- BEA.  Advance copies, rumored to exist in obscure places, were nowhere to be found and ultimately went the way of the dodo as Viking ran out.  Friends were asking if I'd read it, telling me how much they loved it but I couldn't get my mitts on a copy. Another friend, one of the finest booksellers I've ever known, was so impressed, she pre-ordered 10 copies so she could hand them out to people the day it pubbed.  I was enthusiastically recommending it to people and had yet to read a word.  

Fortunately and for once, I don't look like a complete ass  because The Rules of Civility is that good.   

At least to begin, all you need to know is that it is New Years Eve, 1937 in a Manhattan jazz club when a couple of regular gals from the secretarial pool, Kate Kontent (accent on the second syllable) and Eve Ross, meet a handsome, well-heeled, cashmere-coated banker, Theodore Grey.  But "my friends call me Tinker. Couldn't you have just guessed it? How the WASPs loved to nickname their children after the workaday trades: Tinker. Cooper. Smithy.  Maybe it was to hearken back to their seventeenth-century New England bootstraps--the manual trades that had made them stalwart and humble and virtuous in the eyes of their Lord.  Or maybe it was just a a way of politely understating their predestination to having it all."  

That's from page 19!  Kate's description of Eve on page 14 is so perfect, I read it four times and twice aloud to Mrs. Next.

This debut novelist (whose names sounds like Chico Marx making a room service request) will have a high mark to meet in any subsequent work as the prose is exquisite throughout, the use of alliteration artful, the characters believable and endearing.  It is a Gatsby-esque tale extremely well-told that will tug at your heart and your conscience and will leave you wanting more.  Is it a "classic"?  I'll leave that to time and taste.  Is it one of the best novels of recent memory?  I think so.  

Where the hell I've been

Surprised to hear from me?  Thought I'd chucked it all and gotten a paying gig?  Perhaps a better offer? Goodness no.  I wouldn't leave you though I am apt to disappear from time to time.  Turns out I took the summer off and hadn't even expected to do so.  

You see, for the first time since she began teaching, Mrs. Next allowed herself to relax.  She took no classes, attended no seminars, studied no new theory and simply let her mind alone for the better part of three months.  So I joined her and it was delightful.

We took it easy, worked on our home, enjoyed time with friends, ate entirely too well and traveled a bit.  We read and read and read and I even had a little work done--fingertip implants.  (All the bloggers are doing it but let's keep it between us for now, shall we?  You're a doll).  

So that's why ol' Reed has been out of touch.  However, that's about to change.  As mentioned, lots of reading and therefore, lots to talk about.  In the near future, I'll post on several books worth a look, including:
 
The Rules of Civility, an absolutely marvelous debut that's been out for only two weeks but will be read for years and years to come,

Donald Ray Pollock's disturbing, Ohio Gothic novel, The Devil All the Time,

One Thousand White Women, Jim Fergus' cinematic epistolary novel from 1998,

and the absolutely charming Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman.  Main character Harri will stay with you long after the last page.

There will be more and soon.  Do stay with me.