By Cameron Woodhead
IN SHORT FICTION
REVIEWS BY CAMERON WOODHEAD
A Gentleman in Moscow. By Amor Towles.
PICK OF THE WEEK
A Gentleman in Moscow
Amor Towles
Hutchinson, $29.99
In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is hauled before a Bolshevik tribunal, declared an unrepentant aristocrat, and sentenced to indefinite confinement in the servants' quarters at the Hotel Metropol in Moscow. As decades pass, and the wheel of history grinds its way through the might and misery of Soviet Russia outside, Rostov finds freedom in imprisonment. The secret of his happiness? A determination to accept his reduced circumstances, seek out pleasure and human company where he may, and remain at all times the perfect gentleman. A light comedy with a philosophical bent, A Gentleman in Moscow is an endlessly charming argument for courtesy, and a great tonic for anyone dispirited by the endemic rudeness of our own times.