“ wonderful debut novel…Towles with some of the great themes of love and class, luck and fated encounters that animated Wharton’s novels.” - The Chicago Tribune “Put on some Billie Holiday, pour a dry martini and immerse yourself in the eventful life of Katey Kontent… clearly knows the privileged world he’s writing about, as well as the vivid, sometimes reckless characters who inhabit it.” - People “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

“With this snappy period piece, Towles resurrects the cinematic black-and-white Manhattan of the golden age… characters are youthful Americans in tricky times, trying to create authentic lives.” - The New York Times Book Review “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 Matthew Lage, Iowa Book L.L.C., Iowa City, IA Matthew Lage, Iowa Book L.L.C., Iowa City, IA August 2011 Indie Next List

With echoes of Fitzgerald, Towles evokes effortlessly the era of pre-war Manhattan, from the workplace politics of a law office secretarial pool to the alcohol-fueled lawn party of the Long Island gin-and-horses set. A chance meeting with an enigmatic young businessman launches the pair into areas of society heretofore closed to them, where they encounter a large cast of characters both charming and repellent. “This flawless debut novel follows two young women, boarding-house roommates, making their way in 1938 Manhattan.

Rules of civility