"Drawing of Molly Allgood (Maire O'Neill) by Ben Bay, in the title role of Deirdre of the Sorrows by J.M. Synge, circa 1910. From the collection of the National Library of Ireland."

We will be discussing Irishman Joseph O’Connor’s novel Ghost Light. This thought provoking novel opens in the early 1900s in Dublin. The reader meets W. B. Yeats who is writing a play with inspiration from popular playwright John Synge, a “real” playwright who was the author of Playboy of the Western World and Tinker’s Wedding. Synge becomes romantically involved with Molly Allgood, who is a much younger strong willed, talented actress who often stars in his plays. Their love affair is played out in the novel so very beautifully. (Author Joseph O’Connor grew up in Dublin “watching” the house on the hill where playwright John Synge wrote his plays.)

The reader is then propelled forward to 1950s London where Molly reflects on her lost love John Synge who died an early death. Through a series of flashbacks, the reader gets to experience Molly’s tumultuous life during and after Synge’s death. Her love memories, which float from Dublin to London to New York,  keep her alive even though her depleted life becomes horribly sad. Still, the power of the love story grows as the reader turns each page, becoming more and more involved in this novel.

As the author of Redemption Falls, and the world wide sensation Star of the Sea, Joseph O’Connor and his incredible talent as a writer rank at the top of my most admired present day authors. I heard him read at Lemuria  from Redemption Falls in 2007, and  I also heard him read last year from Ghost Light. His readings were both mesmerizing and energizing. It would be hard to find another author who reads his own work with such passion and love. The Irish accent does not hurt either!

Come join us when we discuss Ghost Light next Thursday. If you want more information about our book club, please email me at: nan@lemuriabooks.com.  Click here to see a full listing of everything our book club has read since 2007. Come join us for challenging discussions each month.

See a listing of all of Joseph O’Connor’s books here.

Enjoy a guest post by Joseph O’Connor here.

So, we began with maybe two or three members in attendance for each meeting. Our first title chosen was Margaret Atwood’s novel Oryx and Crake. From there we moved to other great titles, primarily literary or contemporary fiction, with a sprinkling of some noteworthy non-fiction titles such as Three Cups of Tea.

Our members show diversity both in their literary taste, as well as in their professional and personal lives. Age is not an issue, nor is gender. The common feature that we all share is a love of noteworthy literature. Multiple cities and states of origin promote interest and create diversity in thought and comment. Though primarily composed of local Mississippians, especially native Jacksonians, we also have members who are natives of Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan. To add to the mix, two members give us an international flair with their countries of origin being Germany and Brazil. Therefore, we gain a cultural diversity of thought and opinion and experience which adds to the richness of the group.

We meet the first Thursday of each month, year round, at 12 p.m. Discussions around a table or two kick off at 12:15 p.m, so being a little late creates no problem. Meeting at our dot.com building, which is just outside of the Broadstreet Bakery north, side door, we meet for an hour. Members are free to bring a snack or beverage of choice. Centered around tables, our diverse group of around 10-12 members thoroughly enjoys our provoking literary discussions.

Atlantis members also receive a 10% discount on Atlantis selections.

Contact Nan Graves Goodman at Lemuria (601-366-7619), or by email: nan@lemuriabooks.com

2007 Atlantis Book Club Selections

2008 Atlantis Book Club Selections

2009 Atlantis Book Club Selections

2010 Atlantis Book Club Selections

2011 Atlantis Book Club Selections

2012 Atlantis Book Club Selections

Concerning the two main characters, one is a writer, hence the title: Mr. Fox, and the other, well, the other, is not real, but the reader comes to know her “as real”. Her name is Mary Fox, but she is of no relation to Mr. Fox. So, who is she? Well, to be precise, she is Mr. Fox’s muse, but not in your ordinary way, because, you see, Mary appears in the writer Mr. Fox’s short stories which are in essence what make up this book.This may sound confusing, and at the beginning of the book, things are rather confusing, even though the reader already knows the premise of the book. But, as the book flows along, one learns the power of the imagination which can summon or coax or even fear the muse. A third character, Daphne Fox, who is Mr. Fox’s wife, appears from time to time in the book. She is super jealous of Mary, even though Mr. Fox tells her that Mary is “not real”. Yet, Mary seems very real to Daphne who often loses her sanity due to her husband writer’s attention to Mary.

Once Mr. Fox tries to explain to his wife Daphne about Mary, “Daphne. There is no girl on the side….She’s  in my head…I know this sounds unlikely, but you’ve got to believe me. If you don’t, I’ve got nothing else to tell you. ….Not a lot to tell. Her name’s Mary. You’d like her, I think. She’s kind of direct. No-nonsense. I made her up during the war. She started off as nothing but a stern British accent saying things like, ‘Chin up, Fox,’ and ‘Where’s your pluck?’ Just a precaution for the times I came dangerously close to feeling sorry for myself. Don’t look like that D., I don’t need a doctor. Anyhow–you see now, don’t you, that she couldn’t possibly call the house? That’s just people getting wrong numbers, or one of your brothers phoning you up to ask for money and then losing his nerve. ”

The author of this clever little novel, Helen Oyeyemi, also wrote The Icarus Girl, The Opposite House, and White Is for Witching, which won a 2010 Somerset Maugham Award.

One Writers Garden: Eudora Welty’s Home Place by Susan Haltom and Jane Roy Brown would be at the very top of my list. Susan, a personal friend of mine, asked Eudora Welty herself in the mid 1990s if she would allow her garden to be renovated. Miss Welty gave Susan permission to restore the garden just as it was in the 2oth century, so Susan got to work researching the garden, primarily at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

Susan’s co-author, Jane Roy Brown, who resides in Massachusetts, researched societal movements and national landscape design trends, which were apparent during the time, and renowned Mississippi landscape photographer Langdon Clay added his beautiful four season photographs of the Welty garden. The book which emerged is spectacular! 

One Writers Garden is divided into four sections: Spring, 1920s; Summer, 1930s; Fall,1940s; and Winter, Postwar and Beyond. The appendices at the back are to be cherished by a Mississippi gardener, for they include lists of what Eudora Welty and her mother Chestina, who actually was the garden founder, grew– from the original plant list, to annuals, to roses,  to a partial list of flowers and plants mentioned in the Pulitzer Prize winning author’s prose.  This is a reference, as well as a gardening book for ALL Mississippians, as well as others, to have on their book shelves, or to take out into their gardens to dream about and be inspired.

First of all, however, this book should be on prominent display on coffee tables and in personal libraries throughout the state, for it is truly a beautiful and classy and  informative gardening guide heralding gardens of past times. Additionally, every reader of this book should visit the newly restored breath- taking Welty Garden on Pinehurst Street across from Belhaven University in Jackson, Mississippi.

Author Susan Haltom, is the garden designer, preservation and maintenance coordinator of the Welty Garden. Since I often work with Susan, and the other “Cereus Weeders”  in the Welty garden, I can personally attest to the fact that Susan has a wealth of information in her gardening head, and she puts it to good use in the Welty garden.

I can’t imagine a better or more lovely garden restoration, especially at the home and garden of one of the world’s most influential and talented writers. Now we Mississippians have something else in the realm of  arts and literature to make us proud:  the Welty Garden! Kudos to Susan how personally made and continues to make this happen.

Garden guru Jacksonian Felder Rushing, known locally, nationally, and internationally has penned a new book this year, to add to his other best selling gardening books, titled Slow Gardening: A No-Stress Philosophy for All Senses and Seasons.

In the introduction, Rushing states, “Life has lots of pressures–why include them in the garden? Doing something slowly means savoring what you are doing. Slow Gardening has its inspirational roots in Slow Food, an international movement founded by Italian activist  Carlo Petrini and others in the 1980s and dedicated to celebrating and defending traditional, seasonal, and sustainably grown local foods, and the people who produce and prepare them.”

The clever, tongue in cheek photos in this motivational gardening book, such as the worm bin, the compost bin, and the whimsical garden art, entertain the reader who is yearning for a different approach to gardening.

This book is for those who don’t mind breaking the landscape rules and for those who want to be free to sit awhile and reflect, free from grass cutting, fertilizing, raking, and weeding. In other words, this innovative gardening book is for the unique, creative, and willing to change gardener who want to “slow down” and “smell the roses”!

Heirloom Gardening in the South: Yesterday’s  Plants for Today’s Gardens by William C. Welch and Greg Grant ranks as my next chosen 2011 gardening book! For those gardeners who appreciate the diverse and interesting heritage of our Southern plants and flowers, this, not only attractive, but highly useful gardening book, fills the bill!

The two dedicated, passionate gardening authors explain their love for pass-along plants, as well as their adoration for old bulbs and cemetery plants, among others. As native Texas gardeners, they are familiar with the challenges and problems surrounding growing flowers and plants in the drought and humidity infused South, so their advice on what to choose, what has worked, and what will work in a Southern garden comes from years and years of experience.

Some of the most enjoyable chapters, including “Rediscovering a Wealth of Southern Heirloom Plants”, “Heirloom Plants of the South” and “How Our Gardens Grew: Creating Your Own Garden Traditions”, not only make any Southern gardener want to rethink his or her choice of plants and flowers but also challenge the gardener to plant and cherish the old, tried-and-true beauties which our Southern ancestors chose.

After I finished the last chapter of Hell, I realized that I had read one of the best satires of the times. In fact, when a customer comes in Lemuria these days asking for a humorous book, I take him or her to look at Hell. Ranking in my mind just after the funny factor of  Confederacy of Dunces, Hell is a laugh out loud novel, which takes the reader to “Hell” to meet the Clintons, the Bushes, and even the Pope, since, after all, no one on earth has been perfect, so all end up in Hell, but rarely know why.

So, suffice it to say that when I got a copy of Butler’s new novel A Small Hotel, I was rather expecting some satire and humor, but after a couple of chapters, I realized that my expectations were way wrong. Instead, I realized that I had happened upon a very depressing book. In case you, reader, are wondering why I would want to read such a depressingly dark novel, please keep reading because that is precisely what I did, and I am very happy that I did.

As far as subject matter, Butler handles the break up of a long term relationship with clarity and poignancy and empathy, but, and that is a big “but”, his time treatment is what makes the novel remarkable, as well as its ending. We all know that few writers can handle simultaneous time with skill. In other words reporting on what is happening at the exact same time with two characters who are not in the same proximity, requires talent to avoid redundancy and triteness. Robert Olen Butler achieves this without confusing the reader, nor boring him.

Because the novel is primarily set in New Orleans, particularly in the French Quarter, in “a small hotel”, the Southern reader feels right at home. Also, since some of the main action of the novel,  occurs during the craziness of Mardi Gras, the reader feels a certain connectedness. As the novel progresses, it becomes clear that a lack of communication thwarts the lives of the protagonist and her husband, or vice versa, depending on perspective. In particular, the power of the word “love”, said  out loud, or the lack thereof, becomes more and more powerful.

Toward the end of the novel, the action takes a fast turn forward, which is interesting, since heretofore, a large majority of the action takes place in the past. Once again, Butler’s treatment of time emerges as one of his most valued assets. Without giving away the ending,  I will say that this initially depressing book ends with hope for the future. How Butler gets to this hope remains, once again, as a valued talent, for it is in the telling of the story that the reader finds gratitude.

See Kelly’s post on A Small Hotel.

See Nan’s post on Hell.

We still have signed first editions of A Small Hotel. Click here.

Based on the experiences of an 11-year-old boy who embarks on a three week voyage on the cruiser “Oronsay” from Colombo to England, Ondaatje’s new novel grabbed me just as his Anil’s Ghost (2000), and Divisadero (2007) did.

As an Ondaatje follower, I was quickly reminded again within the first chapter of The Cat’s Table, of this author’s superb ability to grab me with his quiet, reflective, pensive  style.

Soon after the novel opens, the reader learns that the young boy, who tells this story from his point of view, is being sent from Colombo to England to reunite with his mother, whom he has not seen in four years. He is told, in a matter of fact way, that he will cross the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, and then go through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean  before he arrives at his small port in England.  Although he does have a “semi” guardian on board the ship, he is not really controlled by her and is given a top bunk in a suite where a middle age bunk mate holds nightly bridge parties. The protagonist does enjoy the periodic company of Emily, a seventeen year old beauty, whom he knew in Colombo.

By the end of the first day, Michael learns that he has been assigned to Table 76, the “Cat’s Table”  in the dining room, the table farthest away from the Captain’s Table, which is reserved for the” insignificants” aboard. It is here that Michael meets two slightly older boys who become his friends, confidants, and pre-adolescent “partners in crime“. What these boys witness during the three week voyage–adult romances, the exotic  living garden hidden in the ship’s dark hold, a trapeze artist  performance, a shackled prisoner’s nightly parading, and even a possible murder–make the three week trip one which the narrator will reflect upon for his lifetime. What Ondaatje holds up in this book are two non-touchable human abilities, the ability of perception versus the ability of memory. Where they reside, overlap, or overrule each other in the impressionable mind of  an 11 year old boy, as he matures into his late twenties,  make this novel the masterpiece that it is, in my opinion.

The novel flashes forward as well as backward, another successful characteristic of  this respected Canadian writer, who was born in Sri Lanka. The lives of the three boys, who were best friends for the voyage, are loosely followed by the narrator, but it is from the point of view of the narrator that the reader begins to piece together the truth, but, of course, his fallible version of the truth. One of my favorite parts of the novel occurs close to the end when the protagonist gets a call from Emily, whom he has not seen for 15 years. As they visit at her Canadian cottage, they rehash some of the major events of the voyage, especially the suspected murder as well as the night the prisoner escaped overboard holding his mute daughter’s hand. Once again, the question or dilemma of memory versus perception comes into play, and this time, diverse emotions do as well.

The Cat’s Table is a cleverly written novel all about how a certain time period in a child’s life can affect him always. Also, the desire to reconnect with those who mutually shared this time takes precedence as well.  As I turned the last page of this novel late last night, I smiled with satisfaction knowing that this renowned author did “it” again and that I can look forward to another novel, hopefully not too far in the future.

To order signed copies, click here.

When I read Jordan’s first novel Mudbound in 2008, I was mesmerized by her description of the Mississippi Delta during the horrible sharecropping years. She is really, really good with setting and creates specific images which remain in your mind for years to come.  I can even remember scenes from Mudbound and how I felt while experiencing the anguish of the character, particularly the female protagonist.

In fact, as I write this, I am thinking about the similarities between the female protagonist in Mudbound compared to the female protagonist in the new When She Woke. The same comparison I would make between the female character in A Handmaid’s Tale with the female protagonist in When She Woke.

Set in some futurist society, probably the mid 21st century (yes, this novel is a dystopia), When She Woke follows the life of Hannah who has had an affair with a super fundamentalist preacher named Reverend Dale, who, of course, is not what his followers think he is: perfect in morals and aspirations and examples of the Godly life. Since I have already compared this novel to A Scarlet Letter, one can already surmise that Hannah is impregnated by Reverend Dale, so she is forced to have an abortion, a HUGE “no-no” in this dystopic world, which in this way, may not be too far ahead in our early years of the 2000s.

Because the prisons have been hugely overcrowded, the current government has decided to “mark” or “color” people for their crimes against society, in order to clear the prison. So, being “red” means a woman had an unlawful abortion in some back room, or being “yellow” means a man committed rape.  Hence, all colors of humanity walk the streets of any given city, marking these sinners as wayward, or evil, or despicable, and to be avoided. To say this novel is a comment upon prejudice or inequality or bias is an understatement!

Hannah does not tell anyone, including the father of her baby, Reverend Dale, that she is pregnant. She arranges her own abortion, and when spied upon and caught by spies for the government and indeed sent to prison, she refuses to incriminate, not only the father, partially because her parents and sister worship him, as well as everyone she knows in her Quaker like previous existence, but also the abortionist. Once she serves her time in prison and her skin is infused with “red”, she is released.

Hannah’s new life begins in a dogmatic boarding house where she is forced to make her own “baby doll” representing her lost baby, name it, and care for it as if it were alive. Shivers and repulsion and sympathy, and a myriad of emotions flood the reader at this point! One can see Hillary Jordan’s talent here at its best, in my opinion.

As the reader follows Hannah’s flee from this horrific cult like religious boarding house, through her numerous skirmishes through the underground network of her rescuers, some to be trusted, some not, the reader altruistically experiences the hopes, disappointments, fear, and repulsion of Hannah.

I am not going to tell whether Hannah survives or not, for the reader needs to experience this novel first hand. To say that most of us here at Lemuria, who read this enticing novel, could not “put it down” is another understatement. It is fast paced and mesmerizing.  When She Woke will probably be chosen as one of the best novels of the year. I know it is one of mine!

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan (Workman, October 2011)

Initially what captivated me were the ease and powerful way in which Frazier uses sentence fragments. Not many writers can use this art form successfully without the writing seeming choppy, but Frazier seems quite at home and comfortable with their use:

A cool November day, blue sky and sunlight thin and angling, even at noon. Leaves entirely off most trees, but still hanging tough and reddish brown on the oaks. 

As I was reading this new Frazier novel, in my mind I was subconsciously comparing the setting to some of my long time favorite plot driven novels, such as Tim Gautreaux’s The Missing, as well as Ron Rash’s Serena. Readers who liked these fast paced, often mysterious plots, will also like Nightwoods, for Frazier, who grew up in the mountains of North Carolina is an expert in placing action in colorful settings.

At the beginning, the protagonist, a no-nonsense capable “outdoorsey” woman, has received from a social child care worker young twins who are the orphans of her previously murdered sister. Never having been married, and certainly never a mother, even Luce realizes immediately that there is something peculiar about these six or seven year old twins, mainly that they don’t talk. Trying to gain their confidence and love, Luce tries all sorts of things to get the “fire loving and setting” kids to start communicating. The reader learns that they probably witnessed the murder of their own mother and makes allowances for their behavior. They are quite clever and confident and certainly not dumb!  Frazier’s use of the flashback shows perfection as the reader also puts bits and pieces together of Luce’s past, as well as the past of her new significant other, who is actually the grandson of the old man who rented Luce the old resort hotel where she lives.

Toward the end of the novel as the action and suspense rapidly increase, the reader leans forward as the twins flee into the mountains to escape their mother’s murderer. Beautiful woodsy settings, expertly and carefully detailed by Frazier add to the delight of this story. This novel is sure to be recognized nationally. After all, Cold Mountain, Frazier’s first novel was an international best seller and also won the National Book Award in 1977. Thirteen Moons, published a few years ago,  was a “New York Times” best seller.

Come hear Charles Frazier read from this new novel on Tuesday, October 11, at 5 p.m. An autographed copy of Nightwoods is a rare opportunity to be seized, as well as a chance to hear a prominent contemporary writer, a master of the written word.

Nightwoods by Charles Frazier is our October First Editions Club pick along with What It Is Like to Go to War by Karl Marlantes.

Click here to read Joe’s blog piece on Nightwoods.

Though the tumultuous plot does merit attention from time to time, the characters and their motivations primarily drive this novel’s force.

Take Felice, who has lived “on the streets” of Miami, which in this case really means the beaches, along with numerous other disturbed teenagers who sometimes find refuge from the heat in an abandoned old house which is rumored to have been the death spot of an old woman a few years earlier. Questions as to how Felice manages to buy food and other necessary items for a meager existence immediately occur to the reader who has already been told of Felice’s ferocious natural beauty.

It soon becomes clear that national modeling talent scouts have discovered Felice, as well the local tattoo parlors, all who pay her handsomely for a photo shoot. Not only on  a couple of occasions, does the reader learn that total strangers regularly ask Felice, “Has anyone ever told you that you look like Elizabeth Taylor?”

Felice's mother is a professional pastry chef; Her brother owns a local produce store. You might get hungry while you read Birds of Paradise.

Of course, the reader, after meeting her economically secure family who lives in a very comfortable house, wonders why in the world a 13 year old beautiful girl with all advantages, would choose to leave her home, her parents, and her lifestyle. Eventually Felice discloses the  fact that her premeditated removal from her home and a normal existence involves a self induced punishment propelled by something involving a best girlfriend who had a flowered past.

The reader is left with this question almost until the very end of the novel.  As a love relationship evolves, Felice, a now edgy self-reliant 17 year old, uses her skateboard to evade the suitor’s advances, knowing all along that Emerson, whose father named him after Ralph Waldo, marches to a better beat than the other homeless kids. He even seems to want a normal future, and that begins to appeal to Felice.

The distraught mother, Avis, whom Felice’s disappearance  affects the most, of course, throws  herself into magnificent pastry creations for which she is known in all of the culinary circles of Miami, having established a successful restaurant catering business early in her adulthood, even before Felice and her brother, Stanley, were born. An interesting sub plot involves a very rowdy talking bird who lives next door, whose owner is a mystical immigrant woman who works a “spell” to entice Felice to return home. This “aside” serves to show the reader the utter desperation of Avis who will try almost anything to get Felice to come home.

(Abu-Jaber immerses you in the beautiful, sensual and affluent parts of Miami, but this is contrasted with Felice's choice to be homeless.)

Even as Felice had started to become a moody pre-teen, her mother tried to win her over with yummy concoctions hoping that she would become interested in the art of pastry making. Alas, this ploy does not work on Felice, but it does on her older brother who withdraws from teenage boy activities more and more to stay home and work with his mother in the kitchen, even more so once his sister disappears. Needless to say, the runaway Felice and her absence has colored the very existence of each member of this distraught family. Eventually, Stanley plants vegetables and herbs in the back yard and becomes interested in organic gardening, a few years later turning that interest into opening an organically focused grocery store, much to his attorney father’s dismay.

The father, Brian, after all, as a successful, but nevertheless unfulfilled attorney, wanted his son to go to college and chose a traditional career, certainly not one where he had to scrounge for customers, and therefore money. As the author lets the reader in on Brian’s world as a high powered Miami real estate lawyer, it becomes clear that every single member of this family is coming unglued at the seams.

The ending, which encompasses the last fifty pages or so, is one of the best that I have read in some time. Every action moves toward a point of completion, fulfillment, and resolution for the reader as the characters grow and become more stable human beings. Not all problems are totally resolved, but there is hope and growth exhibited in each character. For interest and suspense, I suppose, the author does not have the runaway daughter doing exactly what her parents want her to do, but there is communication and heart felt involvement. For a contemporary look  into a teenager’s world, this novel hits the nail on the head with its cutting edge language and plot.

Author Diana Abu-Jaber will be reading at Lemuria from Birds of Paradise this afternoon at 5:00. This is a reading to be attended!

.

As a debut novelist, the author Amor Towles has scored, as we say! Surprisingly, he is a principal at an investment firm in Manhattan, though, once upon his graduation  from Yale, he went on to receive  his master’s degree in English from Stanford. I liked his credentials immediately once I read this, but I wondered if his current involvement  in the cosmopolitan New York business world had rendered him void of exceptional fictional writing talent. Once I read that his debut novel is currently in the top five picks of the NPR recommended novels, however, I became  interested in reading this period piece for sure.

Set primarily in 1938, only a year before the Great Depression hit, New York City was abuzz with well educated, glamorous, fun loving, and often risque twenty somethings. Life was good, and living was great.

Into that environment the female protagonist Katherine, or “Katie” Kontent (pronounced like the state of well being) enters, but not as a socially privileged girl, for even though her upbringing was in the city, she was not from the Upper East Side, nor a debutante, nor did she want to be. The gaiety of the times surrounded Katie as she lived in a girls’ boarding house and met numerous eligible bachelors with whom she became involved.

One of the enticing features for the reader is the knowledge acquired about the diverse  restaurants and bars, many of which had once banded women, but were now reluctantly letting them enter, much to the dismay of some men. One particular scene, which was very fun, involved a dinner at the 21 Club. Having spent some time in New York several years ago, I was eager to read about some of the same locales which I had frequented and to learn about their customs in the late 1930s.

While most girls of the time period were searching for youthful rich potential husbands, bidding their time with only minor secretarial jobs, Katie’s intelligence and drive took her ultimately to a rising publication akin to a mixture of “The New Yorker” and “Vogue.” Because of her drive and initiative, she was once asked by her boss if she even liked men! Even though Katie could barely make ends meet once she obtained her own small apartment, she continued to work extremely hard for her boss, sometime working until 2 and 3 a.m., with no overtime pay, of course, during this time period.

Katherine’s particular love interest, which waxes and wanes throughout, throws the reader onto an emotional roller coaster throughout the novel. The author’s emotive ability to manipulate the reader’s desires to root for the heroine should not be underestimated, and at times, the reader wants to take Katherine into another room and talk to her about her decisions, some which seem so wrong for her.

The frame story, which initially puts Katherine in the 1960s, with her husband in the Metropolitan Museum of Art looking at 1930s photos, which happen to have a special someone from the past in them, provides a very effective way to tell the story. Of course, the ending of the book reluctantly throws the reader forward once again to the 1960s.  Not all writers can take on the frame story and have it work as well as Amor Towles does in this novel.

One more thing of great interest to me did involve the title: Rules of Civility, the source of which is actually a short pamphlet composed by the young George Washington entitled “Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation.”

Apparently this short publication was the guide book for all young men of manners and aspirations. It so happens that Katherine’s primary love interest studied, memorized, and applied the 110 rules of etiquette and behavior in his every day life to the extent that he seemed (underline “seemed”) to be flawless. To add to the interest of this novel, the 110 rules are added in the Appendix at the end of this work of fiction.

Take a look at one of the last pages in this incredibly enjoyable novel in order to get a feel for this author’s beautiful language:

“It is a bit of a cliche to characterize life as a rambling journey on which we can alter our course at any given time–by the slightest turn of the wheel, the wisdom goes, we influence the chain of events and thus recast our destiny with new cohorts, circumstances, and discoveries. But for the most of us, life is nothing like that. Instead, we have a few brief periods when we are offered a handful of discrete options. Do I take this job or that job? In Chicago or New York? Do I join this circle of friends or that one, and with whom do I go home at the end of the night? And does one make time for children now? Or later? Or later still?

In that sense, life is less like a journey than it is a game of honeymoon bridge. In our twenties, when there is still so much time ahead of us, time that seems ample for a hundred indecisions, for a hundred visions and revisions–we draw a card, and we must decide right then and there whether to keep that card, and discard the next, or discard the first card and keep the second. And before we know it, the deck has been played out and the decisions we have just made will shape our lives for decades to come.”

Those readers who loved the poet T.S. Eliot’s “The Lovesong of J.Alfred Prufrock,” as I did, will well remember the language that Amor Towles referred to in this quote. I loved Rules of Civility already, but when I read the above, well, then, I was hooked on this novel for sure! Give yourself a treat and read this novel, and give it as a gift to someone this Christmas!

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles (The Viking Press, an imprint of Penguin, July 2011)