Table for Two

 Table for Two: Fictions by Amor Towles  451 pp.

I'll start off saying I am not a big fan of short stories. However, I am a fan of Amor Towles writing. So, in spite of this being a series of short stories and one novella, I enjoyed it, a lot. The short stories all take place in New York City and encompass various takes on relationships in people young and old. All the short stories are written in a way that make you want to know what happens to the characters after the story ends. The novella, however, does exactly that. The main character is Evelyn (Eve) Ross who first appeared in Towles novel The Rules of Civility. That book ends with the unfortunate Evelyn leaving New York by train to be met by her parents in Chicago. As the train pulls into Chicago she buys passage to Los Angeles without getting off the train. Each chapter of the novella is titled with the names of the different characters Eve encounters. Eventually Eve becomes friends with the actress Oliva de Haviland and ends up helping her with a problem that could impact her career. This is an engaging collection, masterfully written. I wonder what Mr. Towles will come up with next. I listened to the audiobook version well read by Edoardo Ballerini and J. Smith-Cameron. Here is a link to Amor Towles discussing the Los Angeles novella on NPR.