Play Book Tag discussion

There's no doubt Amor Towles is a talented writer. I had this book very high up on my TBR long before I realized it fit a prompt for an anthology of short stories. He has a way of writing that captures complex relational character dynamics and internal conflicts, while drawing you in so warmly and easily to his characters. He manages to capture both a moment in time and the people in it in such a both delightful and deepening way. I thought the stories were each unique and great and I loved them.

One has to be in the mood for a short story or short story collection, which is one of the reasons it took me a long time to get through this book. I enjoyed putting space between the stories. I liked them all, they were each different. Yet when it came time for the Eve novella, I found it hard to be drawn in. Part One has an Olive Kitteridge style, where each of the chapters are people who have encounters with Eve and it is about them and who they are, and their space in time. I found it hard to get into these and have it hold my attention. And Eve was just a random character in each of them, almost besides the point. And I didn't care for Olive Kitteredge in the least. And it had been over a decade at least since I had read Rules in Civility, so I was far away from Eve as well.

But in Part Two, I could no longer remember anything about the random people who had encountered Eve, but then suddenly they were there, and then it got exciting. For me, the novella began in Part Two. I definitely got into it more. I liked the anthology as a whole.

Every now and then I would stop at a passage and marvel at the writing. Here is an example of Towles's descriptions that take you in. And its from a character called Litsky from Eve in Hollywood, and I couldn't tell you anything about this character or his role in the story. But I did dog ear this page to share it with you. See if you love it as much as I did. Here goes:

"After 25 years in this town, Litsky could believe almost anything. He'd seen morons get rich and geniuses go broke. He'd seen works of art get tossed in the trash heap and bits of schlock capture the hearts and minds of America. He'd seen love affairs between consenting adults that defied the imagination. Anyone who tried to make sense of it was writing their own ticket to the loony bin. But having come to believe that absolutely anything could happen in Hollywood would happen in Hollywood, what Litsky couldn't believe was his own good luck."

I loved the novella about Eve. I hope Towles includes her in his future work - more short stories or a full novel.