This review contains affiliate links, which earn me a small commission when you click and purchase, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my small business and allowing me to continue providing you a reliable resource for clean book ratings.
A husband and wife caught up in the Russian Revolution, a naturally gifted artist and a mentor, a pair of strangers in an airport, a father and a daughter, two patrons in Carnegie Hall, a young man and his uncle, and a young woman teaming up with a budding movie star. These pairs of people are the primary characters in this collection of short stories, sadly none of which are connected to each other. (I am still riding high over What You Are Looking For Is in the Library.) However, for fans of Rules of Civility, one of the main characters gets a continuation of their story here.
I have always been a huge fan of the short story, regardless of the reputation of the author. I have greatly enjoyed pieces by complete unknowns and struggled to understand ridiculous accounts penned by prominent writers. Clearly, a writer must achieve a certain threshold of skill to craft a narrative with a compelling plot, interesting characters, and a reasonable conflict. Bonus points are always awarded for a good solid twist at the end.
Amor Towles’ greatest talent lies in his ability to create unique voices for his characters. It does not matter whether he utilizes first-person or third-person prose; these people never ever sound alike. Moving from one tale to the next, the reader is clearly introduced to completely new mouthpiece for each one. That is some serious skill.
Yet even though the conflicts and resolutions contained in these stories are engaging, some of the endings are completely bewildering. In fact, two of them are absolutely maddening! I finished this book a week ago, and I still cannot sleep while wondering if some poor guy ever finds his way home, or if some foolish woman has ever realized that she is the whole problem. However, there are a pair of really satisfying (and unexpected) conclusions, and, as I found in The Lincoln Highway, there is one portion I copied verbatim because it was incredibly well-written and expressed a stunning message. Thank you so very much, Mr. Towles.
Table for Two is the perfect companion for anyone traveling this summer and reading in bites; only one story is really long. Regardless of my frustrations with a few of them, none contained any boring sections; rather, every piece is a genuine page-turner. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
Rated: Moderate. Two stories were 100% clean, three were mild, and the other two were moderate. One contained three strong uses of profanity and a pair of medium vulgar terms. The second had four vain usages of Deity and a dozen more mild to medium profanities.
Click here to purchase your copy of Table for Two on Amazon.
