In his book, Towles presents a collection of short stories that are placed in New York, and a novella that takes a character from his first novel Rules of Civility and writes about her adventures in 1930's Hollywood. Every short story catches your interest immediately and leaves you wanting more until you begin the next story, which immediately does the same. While the city is the location for each tale, they all have different plots. A Russian immigrant whose familiarity with standing in lines in the Motherland comes in handy in his new homeland. A young rare bookseller's assistant has a proclivity for imitating the signatures of dead authors. Two strangers stuck at the airport find out who is responsible for whom. A steadfast pillar of society has a secret life. A would-be art dealer gets the tables turned. And then when we get in the rhythm of the short story format, the novella switches to Los Angeles where we are immersed in a blackmail scheme that could cost actresses their reputations and cause the takedown of the big movie studios.
Towles's writing style is absolutely fantastic...he is sophisticated, witty, and thought-provoking. He has a knack for quickly sketching in characters and making you really care about how they think or what they will do. I used to say that I was not really a fan of the short story format but my mind has now been changed-hopefully this won't be the last of his short fiction collections.
Reviewed by Donna Ballard
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