Historical novel is big seller in 2017
From the moment she read an early copy of Amor Towles’ novel “A Gentleman in Moscow,’’ author-bookstore owner Ann Patchett had a feeling her customers would love the story of a Russian count accused by the Bolsheviks of succumbing to the “corruptions of his class’’ and held for decades under house arrest at a luxury hotel.
“The book is like a salve,’’ says Patchett, who chose “A Gentleman in Moscow’’ for the First Editions reading group at Parnussus Books in Nashville, Tenn. “I think the world feels so disordered right now. The count’s refinement and genteel nature are exactly what we’re longing for. His world was also in shambles but he maintained his grace and humour.’’
First released in September 2016, Towles’ lyrical narrative has become one of this year’s top word-of-mouth successes. Building on a solid first printing of 80,000 copies, “A Gentleman in Moscow’’ has sold more than 800,000 copies and remains in the top 100 on Amazon.com.
Towles is a former partner in the investment firm Select Equity Group and author of a previous novel, “Rules of Civility,’’ a sophisticated tale of New York society in the 1930s. He first thought of “A Gentleman in Moscow’’ around eight years ago while staying at a favourite hotel in Geneva and recognizing people in the lobby. He soon came up the idea of a man confined indefinitely in a luxury hotel and thought of Russia, with its long history of house arrest, an appropriate setting.
The novel follows Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov’s life from the 1920s to 1950s as he adapts to losing the world he grew up in.
“The book is, to some degree, a meditation on a set of esthetic and moral values, as personified through an aristocrat, and how this contrasts to a 20th-century world,’’ says Towles, a Boston native who now lives in Manhattan.
“I do not believe human progress, in its most complex sense, is linear. The advances we make in science and technology, in the social order — most of these advances require shedding off of other aspects of life that had significant merits.’’