Amor Towles: A Gentleman in Moscow, 9780735221673, Penguin Random House, US

Do you know the feeling when you put down a book feeling really sad that you are about to say goodbye to some beloved characters?  Amor Towles “A Gentleman in Moscow” is that type of book, going up on my shelf of all-time favorite books. I fell in love with his debut novel “Rules of Civility” a few years ago; I have purchased it as a present for friends countless times since then.  “A Gentleman in Moscow” reminds me of the Russian Classics such as Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Towles style of writing is a pure joy to read and the story as such simply wonderful. I read it in the turmoil days of the US election, what a solace it was to return to this fine novel when all I wanted to do is puke in the real world.  As if God sent, A Gentleman in Moscow is like a parable teaching you that in times of political upheaval true happiness can be found in the most unexpected ways.

Amor Towles takes you on a trip to Moscow starting in 1922 when Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov stands in front of a revolutionary Red Army tribunal of Internal Affairs, being accused of having written a poem which is considered a threat to the revolution whereby he is sentenced to life long house arrest in the Hotel Metropol, right across from the Kremlin. This doesn’t faze Count Rostov much when hearing his sentence as his family had kept a suite in this first class hotel for many years. But to his great surprise he is not led to his room filled with family heirlooms but instead to an attic room. 

What unfolds from this very room is the cosmos of the Hotel Metropol with all its employees and guests, Count Rostov as the central character, gentleman and connoisseur of human nature. The 462 pages of this novel provide a glittering cast of characters, with a background of one of the most tumultuous 40 years of Russian history, every chapter unfolding another episode in the life of Count Rostov who never leaves this hotel in all these years, well almost....  This gentle, captivating story is a perfect antidote to these unsettling times. I urge you to go out and buy a copy of “A Gentleman in Moscow” immediately.  You will not regret it, I promise.