My Book Club chose Love Towles’ new Rules of Civility to discuss this month. There is so much demand for the book in the library that I was only able to get the Audio version. This was a new experience for me and allowed me to see the mastery of beautiful prose that Love Towles possesses as a novel read.
Reminiscent of The Great Gatsby as a novel set in the Jazz Age New York City in 1938, Rules of Civility has already been contracted as a film in it will be next. The story is about Katey Kontent (second syllable accent) who moves to New York at the age of 25 to join the secretarial pool of a law firm. Katey’s charm, looks and personality quickly propel her into the upper echelon of New York society and business, as she takes a job as a personal assistant to the editor of Conde Nast Magazine.
Ahead of this success, Katey and her house-boarding roommate, Eva Ross, head for Greenwich-village on the block. New Year’s Eve is to be had with three dollars. Eve laughs with the man at the next table who joins the girls for the rest of the evening. Tinker Grey, elegantly dressed, is a chance encounter that changes the lives of two girls who are her best friends. .
Both Katey and Eva are attracted to Tinker. Once again, three car accidents are involved with Tinker as the driver and Eve in the passenger seat. Katey in the back seat was not injured and neither was Tinker. Eva, whose face was raised, required a long period of recovery from many injuries. He invited Eve Tinker to stay in his house this time. They became a couple and traveled to Europe together.
Although Katey had fallen hard for Tinker and must have believed that he had feelings for her, she had to look elsewhere for social activities and managed to have many male friends accompanying her. It was also during this time that she moved up the professional ladder to Conde Nast.
Most of this story is told in flashback, with the opening scene taking place nearly thirty years later in 1966, as Katey and her husband visited the art presented in New York. Here the reader is not told who Katey’s husband is and is left to wonder which of her suitors she won. The story then becomes Katey’s memories of her younger days when she first moved to New York. The memory of one year is embraced, New Years Eve 1937 until the end of 1938. The story allows the reader to see the sights and sounds of New York at that legendary time.
Why a novel entitled Rules of Civility? George Washington, in his youth composed a treatise on honorable behavior for a young man willing to be accepted. society Tinker Gray owned a copy of this guide called The Rules of Civility and it seems his bible is ahead of the world.
The reader may be surprised to discover that Tinker is not himself. The story can tell more about Tinker’s influence on others than Katey’s attempt to rise in the professional world in the New York City of that time. a>.
I’m looking forward to seeing what I can do with this story in the film industry. There are so many nuances, hidden meanings, and lessons to be learned. It should be hoped that the transition will contain all new attempts to express.
Source:
The Rules of Civility Love Towles (2011)
