Table for Two

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I'm still kind of pissed off that the New York Times had zero Amor Towles books on its list of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. They claim to have polled "hundreds of literary luminaries". I can only speculate as to the "luminary" criteria, and my speculation is not pretty.

(The NYT also polled readers; Towles showed up with two books on the readers' list. Hm.)

This book is a collection of six short stories and one novella:

"The Line"
A story of the Russian peasant Pushkin and his wife, as they deal with the infant Soviet Union. Moved off his tenant farm, Pushkin finds a new career, holding peoples' places in the lines that have become part of everyday life in the USSR. This causes his life to take some major unexpected turns.
"The Ballad of Timothy Touchett"
Timothy fancies himself a writer, but has no experiences worth writing about. Also missing, it seems: intelligence, writing talent, and character. His life is changed by accepting employment with a shady dealer in used and rare books, who discovers Timothy's actual talent: aping the handwriting style of famous authors.
"Hasta Luego"
The narrator, Jerry, makes a new friend in Smitty at LaGuardia Airport, where their travel plans are spoiled by bad weather. They cooperate in finding a place to eat, drink, and lodge. But soon Jerry finds that Smitty has a much more complex life, and a more iffy character, than he was counting on.
"I Will Survive"
The narrator's wife, Nell, has a mother, Peggy, who requests their help in finding out what's going on with Peggy's husband, who's been fibbing about his whereabouts. And it turns out there's a pretty good reason for that. Involving roller skating.
"The Bootlegger"
A couple attend a concert at Carnegie Hall, but the husband gets flustered and offended by the odd man in an adjacent seat, who appears to be illegally taping the concert. Dudgeon is high! But there's an innocent explanation! Or is there?
"The DiDomenico Fragment"
An idle heir is in danger of his fortune declining to levels which will not support his lifestyle. It's threatening to go from "lavish" to "slightly less lavish"! But financial salvation might be had if he can arrange for a lovely bit of artwork to be sold to a deep-pocketed collector. Unfortunately, it belongs to someone else. Nevertheless…
"Eve in Hollywood"
This is the novella, and it is sort of a sequel to Towles' first novel, Rules of Civility. It's set in the mid-1930s. At the end of that book, Eve was leaving New York to return to her parents' home in the midwest. But at the last minute, she changes her mind, leaves her parents waiting at the station in Chicago, and decides to seek her fortune in… well, you see the title. And (eventually) makes the acquaintance of an actual movie star. Who has a problem with blackmail.

This last one is a lot of fun. If the Raymond Chandler estate wants to get a good novelist to write another Marlowe novel, Towles would be a great choice. Example, the description of a Hollywood denizen with a tragic flaw:

Because here's the thing: Ma and Pa loved to see the girl next door, all right, sitting on top of the silver screen. But the only thing they loved more was seeing her tumble back to earth. That didn't mean Ma and Pa were bad people. There wasn't a mean-spirited bone in their bodies. They just couldn't help themselves. The Krauts call it schadenfreude, Litsky called it human nature—which is just a fancy term for the God-given flaws we have no intention of giving back.

So: interesting tales of interesting people, told with incandescent style.