Rules of Civility
A Novel
(Sprache: Englisch)
From the New York Times-bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow, a "sharply stylish" (Boston Globe) book for Mom on Mother's Day about a young woman in post-Depression era New York who suddenly finds herself thrust into high society-now with over one...
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From the New York Times-bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow, a "sharply stylish" (Boston Globe) book for Mom on Mother's Day about a young woman in post-Depression era New York who suddenly finds herself thrust into high society-now with over one million readers worldwide On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker, happens to sit down at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a year-long journey into the upper echelons of New York society-where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve. With its sparkling depiction of New York's social strata, its intricate imagery and themes, and its immensely appealing characters, Rules of Civility won the hearts of readers and critics alike.
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It was the last night of 1937.With no better plans or prospects, my roommate Eve had dragged me back to The Hotspot, a wishfully named nightclub in Greenwich Village that was four feet underground.
From a look around the club, you couldn t tell that it was New Year s Eve. There were no hats or streamers; no paper trumpets. At the back of the club, looming over a small empty dance floor, a jazz quartet was playing loved-me-and-left-me standards without a vocalist. The saxophonist, a mournful giant with skin as black as motor oil, had apparently lost his way in the labyrinth of one of his long, lonely solos. While the bass player, a coffee-and-cream mulatto with a small deferential mustache, was being careful not to hurry him. Boom, boom, boom, he went, at half the pace of a heartbeat.
The spare clientele were almost as downbeat as the band. No one was in their finery. There were a few couples here and there, but no romance. Anyone in love or money was around the corner at Café Society dancing to swing. In another twenty years all the world would be sitting in basement clubs like this one, listening to antisocial soloists explore their inner malaise; but on the last night of 1937, if you were watching a quartet it was because you couldn t afford to see the whole ensemble, or because you had no good reason to ring in the new year.
We found it all very comforting.
We didn t really understand what we were listening to, but we could tell that it had its advantages. It wasn t going to raise our hopes or spoil them. It had a semblance of rhythm and a surfeit of sincerity; it was just enough of an excuse to get us out of our room and we treated it accordingly, both of us wearing comfortable flats and a simple black dress. Though under her little number, I noted that Eve was wearing the best of her stolen lingerie.
Eve Ross . . .
Eve was one of those surprising beauties from the American Midwest.
In New York it becomes so easy to assume that the city
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s most alluring women have flown in from Paris or Milan. But they re just a minority. A much larger covey hails from the stalwart states that begin with the letter I like Iowa and Indiana and Illinois. Bred with just the right amount of fresh air, roughhousing, and ignorance, these primitive blondes set out from the cornfields looking like starlight with limbs. Every morning in early spring one of them skips off her porch with a sandwich wrapped in cellophane ready to flag down the first Greyhound headed to Manhattan this city where all things beautiful are welcomed and measured and, if not immediately adopted, then at least tried on for size.
One of the great advantages that the midwestern girls had was that you couldn t tell them apart. You can always tell a rich New York girl from a poor one. And you can tell a rich Boston girl from a poor one. After all, that s what accents and manners are there for. But to the native New Yorker, the midwestern girls all looked and sounded the same. Sure, the girls from the various classes were raised in different houses and went to different schools, but they shared enough midwestern humility that the gradations of their wealth and privilege were obscure to us. Or maybe their differences (readily apparent in Des Moines) were just dwarfed by the scale of our socioeconomic strata that thousand-layered glacial formation that spans from an ashcan on the Bowery to a penthouse in paradise. Either way, to us they all looked like hayseeds: unblemished, wide-eyed, and God-fearing, if not exactly free of sin.
Hailing from somewhere at the upper end of Indiana s economic scale, Eve was indisputably a natural blonde. Her shoulder-length hair, which was sandy in summer, turned golden in the fall as if in sympathy with the wheat fields back home. She had fine features and blue eyes and pinpoint dimples so perfect
One of the great advantages that the midwestern girls had was that you couldn t tell them apart. You can always tell a rich New York girl from a poor one. And you can tell a rich Boston girl from a poor one. After all, that s what accents and manners are there for. But to the native New Yorker, the midwestern girls all looked and sounded the same. Sure, the girls from the various classes were raised in different houses and went to different schools, but they shared enough midwestern humility that the gradations of their wealth and privilege were obscure to us. Or maybe their differences (readily apparent in Des Moines) were just dwarfed by the scale of our socioeconomic strata that thousand-layered glacial formation that spans from an ashcan on the Bowery to a penthouse in paradise. Either way, to us they all looked like hayseeds: unblemished, wide-eyed, and God-fearing, if not exactly free of sin.
Hailing from somewhere at the upper end of Indiana s economic scale, Eve was indisputably a natural blonde. Her shoulder-length hair, which was sandy in summer, turned golden in the fall as if in sympathy with the wheat fields back home. She had fine features and blue eyes and pinpoint dimples so perfect
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Autoren-Porträt von Amor Towles
Amor Towles is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Rules of Civility, A Gentleman in Moscow, and The Lincoln Highway. The three novels have collectively sold millions of copies and have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. Towles lives in Manhattan with his wife and two children.
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Amor Towles
- 2012, 368 Seiten, Masse: 21,1 x 13,8 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Verlag: PENGUIN BOOKS
- ISBN-10: 0143121162
- ISBN-13: 9780143121169
- Erscheinungsdatum: 18.11.2017
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
Praise for Rules of Civility:An irresistible and astonishingly assured debut about working class-women and world-weary WASPs in 1930s New York in the crisp, noirish prose of the era, Towles portrays complex relationships in a city that is at once melting pot and elitist enclave and a thoroughly modern heroine who fearlessly claims her place in it. O, the Oprah Magazine
With this snappy period piece, Towles resurrects the cinematic black-and-white Manhattan of the golden age [his] characters are youthful Americans in tricky times, trying to create authentic lives. The New York Times Book Review
This very good first novel about striving and surviving in Depression-era Manhattan deserves attention The great strength of Rules of Civility is in the sharp, sure-handed evocation of Manhattan in the late 30s. Wall Street Journal
Put on some Billie Holiday, pour a dry martini and immerse yourself in the eventful life of Katey Kontent [Towles] clearly knows the privileged world he s writing about, as well as the vivid, sometimes reckless characters who inhabit it. People
[A] wonderful debut novel Towles [plays] with some of the great themes of love and class, luck and fated encounters that animated Wharton s novels. The Chicago Tribune
Glittering filled with snappy dialogue, sharp observations and an array of terrifically drawn characters Towles writes with grace and verve about the mores and manners of a society on the cusp of radical change. NPR.org
Glamorous Gotham in one to relish a book that enchants on first reading and only improves on the second. The Philadelphia Inquirer
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