Table for Two by Amor Towles comprises 6 short stories and one novella. This collection is fantastic. There are way more hits than misses in the collection. Amor Towles is my favorite writer of literature today. His writing has this timeless quality that draws you in. The short stories reminded me of Charles Dickens and O. Henry. Where each story has a moral at the end. Towles is great at adding little twists in his stories. They aren’t twists that shock you, but they squeeze your heart. These twists make the story more personal. The novella is a noir set in the golden age of Hollywood. The writing channels James Ellroy and Elmore Leonard. It features a theft that goes wrong with some quirky characters from 1930s Hollywood. The novella acted as a continuing story for Amor Towles’s first novel Rules of Civility. There was a character Eve from Rules of Civility who runs away to Los Angeles from New York. We never read what happened to her in Los Angeles. We learn that she comes to New York a lot more mature. The novella in Table for Two fills in the gap of her disappearance from Rules of Civility. The writing and plotting of the mystery surprised me, and now I want Towles to do a mystery novel. The pace of the stories works well for the most part. I thought only 2 out of the 7 could be shorter. The 6 short stories make up the first half of the book and the novella takes up the back half. Table for Two was published on April 2, 2024.

Plot Summary and Rating:

5 Star stories:

Eve in Hollywood is a novella mystery story that takes place in 1930s Hollywood. Eve was a wild child in New York. A horrible car accident left her with a facial scar and limp. The accident changes Eve and she goes into a depression. She needs a change and Los Angeles is it. We meet Eve on a train as she heads to Los Angeles from New York. She meets a retired cop Charlie. He likes the way she can read people. He also likes what she is reading. Eve befriends the actress Olivia, who is a big rising star. She has a 7-year deal at Warner Brothers. These deals were everything back then and the studio owned you and your image. Eve is out partying with Olivia when a photojournalist sneakily takes a picture of Olivia under duress. Eve thinks fast and gets the pictures back. The management company then hires her for protection. Olivia gets Blackmailed for nude photos she never remembers taking. The mystery of who took the photos, and who is blackmailing Olivia are very entertaining. I love that mystery deepens when someone else figures out who blackmailed Olivia and who wants in on the take.

The Line is a story about a Russian named Pushkin. The story is a quirky story of how he and his wife immigrated to New York. The line in the story refers to the voucher line of communist Russia to get goods. I love how the story parallels this in New York. Pushkin is a very fun character that just loves to chat. He is very hapless and gets taken advantage of, but lucks into immigration in a fun way. The story is a great full-circle narrative. The story does mention the Count from A Gentleman in Moscow. I loved the story so much.

4 Star Stories:

The Bootlegger is a story about morality and a misunderstanding. A New York Couple spends extra money for a concert series to see one artist. The male gets upset when he notices an old man recording the concert and ruining the experience. He tells the staff about the bootlegger, but at first, they don’t believe him. Does the man have a reason to bootleg the concert? Will the reason break your heart? Yes! This is another story that reminded me of Dickens’s writing. The story was good with some twists and turns. It analyzes habit and rule-following. All the conflict could have been avoided if people just talked to one another. The plot follows a man and his wife attending a concert. Their experience is ruined by another person. The person has a reason for breaking the rules. When the truth is revealed, the man who complained feels bad. He then looks for redemption. The last two stories need a specific date to indicate when they take place. I needed to know where technology is to fully grasp the story. Towels’ writes too timelessly.

Hasta Luego is a story about a Christmas fight that is delayed. It is also about meeting a stranger with a sense of life. This story has a twist midway through it that changes the story. The twist came when I was asking what was the point. I thought this was going to be my last favorite story, but the twist changed it for the good. Talk about going above and beyond, if put in the same scenario, I don’t know.

The DiDomenico Fragment is a story about a series of paintings gifted to one family. Everyone in the family has sold the art except one. One family member sold his piece early. Now, he sees an opportunity to cash in on his family’s painting by being the middle man. However, he encounters a problem. They don’t want to sell. He must convince them without learning his gain from the sale. A sold story but a took a while to get going.

The Ballad of Timothy Touchett is a story about an accidental forger of signatures. He soon becomes a real forger when he figures out the scam. Timothy doesn’t take his job lightly and tries to put himself in the headspace of the author as he sighs. The story had a good start but dragged in the middle. The story ends well. The story reminded me of a Charles Dickens story.

3 Star Story:

I Will Survive was the weakest story so far. The moral of the story is to keep secrets from your wife. The story revolves around a woman’s mother who thinks her husband is hiding where he is going. The daughter is convinced to follow the stepdad. But right before she changes her mind. But the daughter does it anyway and is shocked by what sees.

Recommendations: Table for Two is a timeless stories that capture a slice of life in multiple decades. The writing is so good. I don’t read a lot of modern literature, but I would read more if the stories were like this. Towles has a way of writing twists and turns that hook the reader emotionally. The stories are mostly filled with full-circle storytelling. Stories that have a character evolve throughout the story. I fully recommend my followers to drop what you’re doing and read this book! Read any Amor Towles book they are all fantastic reads.

Rating: Table for Two by Amor Towles I rated 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Ranking: I ranked the 4 Amor Towles books that I have read by favorite to least favorite: 1) The Lincoln Highway, 2) A Gentleman in Moscow, 3) Table for Two, and 4) Rules of Civility.