Amor Towles could write a shopping list and I would think it beautifully written. I love the man’s prose. Rules of Civility is no exception.
That said, I have a hard time recently when men write from a woman’s point of view. As a matter of fact, the only author who sits with me as someone who has done it well is Wally Lamb in She’s Come Undone. Though I do wonder if I went back to reread that if I would still feel the same.
Sadly, I do believe that issue carries through Rules of Civility. We spend a year in the life and mind of Katey Kontent. Yet I do not know her well at all. She moves from one incident to the next, pushed by tides, with no explanation or understanding of her motives or thoughts. I think the story would be better served with a third party narrator similar to Nick Carraway of The Great Gatsby. We may not have any more insight in Katey’s actions but at least we wouldn’t expect any more either.
Furthermore, I wonder about the setting aka time period of the story. Honestly, it terms of social acceptability of women working, it feels more 1950s or 60s than 1938. Remember, women didn’t really enter the workforce en masse until World War II, so Katey’s employment as well as her living alone seemed out of time for me and just another convenience to move the story forward.
Lastly, and this one bothers me the most, who can explain to me why the last words of the preface are “New York City 1969” When it clearly states in the first sentence of the preface, “On the night of October 4th, 1966…Val and I attended an opening” and other than some flashbacks, they are leaving the opening at the end of the preface. The very next page propells us back to December 31, 1937 so where the heck does New York City 1969 come into play? Is it a mistake? How does an editor not pick that up? If it’s not a mistake what is it?
I know that seems like small potatoes but my OCD makes me track timelines in stories. Incongruities with timelines (don’t get me started about Star Wars), feel like splinters in my brain I can’t remove.
When I read A Gentleman in Moscow I wavered between a four and a five star rating. I ended up at five because of my love of the prose. This time, I’m decidedly a four, maybe even a 3.75 if pushed.