A Gentleman in Moscow

by Amor Towles
462 pgs

Occasionally, a book comes out that I wouldn’t normally consider reading, but that for some reason or other, I seem fated to read. I’ll pick it up and read the summary on the flap, and think it looks interesting, but there are so many other books I want to read, I’ll never get around to it. So, I put it back down. But then the universe seems to start working on getting me to read it. I see it displayed prominently in the “Staff Picks” section in all the bookstores I enter, it’s recommended to me by multiple people, and I keep picking it back up when I see it in bookstores and rereading the description. When that happens, I eventually give in and buy it. A Gentleman in Moscow is one of those books.

Count Alexander Rostov has been sentenced to house arrest in Moscow’s esteemed Metropol hotel by the country’s new Soviet regime. His crime was writing a counter-revolutionary poem, and for his punishment, he’s branded a “Former Person” and sentenced to live out his days residing on the top floor of the hotel, in a room barely 100 feet square.

The book spans decades, and while one would think that telling a story that covers that much time, all within the walls of a single building would limit the story in some way, Towles manages to tell a story that is both grand and intimate at the same time.

Count Rostov is a fantastic character. He’s refined, intelligent, witty, and sensitive. He’s easy to like and I found myself quickly becoming fascinated by his life in the hotel, and the stories of his life prior to the Metropol. He creates a family within the hotel for himself, with members of the staff and those who come to stay at the hotel included. He experiences the love a father has for a child with a young girl who becomes his ward, all while living in a cramped room barely big enough for a bed and a desk.

I’ve learned to trust the universe’s advice when it wants me to read a book, and A Gentleman in Moscow is a perfect example of why.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★