#rules civility

I have created an extensive playlist of music from roughly 1935-1945 that spans this transition. While jazz is not central to the narrative of Rules of Civility, the music and its various formulations are an important component of the book’s backdrop

While I began writing Rules of Civility in 2006, the genesis of the book dates back to the early 1990s when I happened upon a copy of Many Are Called, the collection of portraits that Walker Evan took on the New York City subways in the late 1930s wi

Below are some answers to commonly asked questions about RULES OF CIVILITY. If you’re interested in seeing one of my original presentations on the book you can find the speech here and the Q&A here. Commentary on the role of Walker Evans’s photograph

July 2021 marked the 10th anniversary of the publication of Rules of Civility. As a novel about a twenty-five-year-old woman from a working class background who’s setting out to climb the socio-economic ladder of New York in 1938 – Amor Towles