Table for Two: Fictions

Much like Irina and Pushkin, Timothy and Pennybrook contrast one another in their story, “The Ballad of Timothy Touchett,” as Pennybrook takes advantage of Timothy’s innocence and poverty to make money off of forgeries. While Pushkin and Irina have little influence on each other, Pennybrook molds Timothy into a criminal, tempting him with wealth and assuaging his concerns about the questionable morality of forging and then selling signatures. Pennybrook enters the story with seeming sophistication that is quickly shown to be simply greed and corruption. In the end, Pennybrook betrays Timothy—he is a trickster, corrupting Timothy and making the story into a cautionary tale.

Timothy is a traditional “starving artist” character, held back by feelings of inadequacy. Timothy arrives in the city like many others, looking for new opportunities, and he thinks he finds one with Pennybrook. However, Timothy is quickly seduced into a life of petty crime. As he continues to make greater sums of money from forgeries, he sees that success no longer requires him to produce great art; instead, he can simply siphon off the achievements of other authors. At first, Timothy is surprised by the power that comes with his wealth, adjusting his naiveté to a world of opulence, but, by the end, Timothy relishes his ill-gotten gains, indicating how he has been corrupted by Pennybrook’s influence. Timothy’s arrest is in some ways a positive ending, as this stops Timothy’s continued descent into becoming Pennybrook.

Jerry and Smitty also contrast one another, continuing the pattern of the collection’s stories. While Jerry is irritable and responsible, Smitty is friendly and unpredictable. Smitty’s role in “Hasta Luego” is to show how appearances can be deceiving: His boisterous and kind demeanor is undercut by the self-destructiveness that results from his alcohol addiction. As Jerry studies Smitty’s behavior, he notes how calculated Smitty’s friendliness really is; later, Smitty’s wife, Jennifer, notes that alcohol dependence comes in many forms, with Smitty’s being overt happiness. However, this happiness is built on an unsteady foundation; for example, Smitty lacks financial awareness or the ability to contain himself, racking up $1,000 in debt by buying drinks for everyone in the bar.

Jerry is not as good with people as Smitty, but he does have an innate sense of responsibility. He tries to back away from Jennifer’s demand that he take Smitty’s shoes because of the weirdness of this request, but ultimately decides to miss his own flight to ensure Smitty’s safe return home. What the story reveals is that although Jerry and Smitty seem like opposites, they are in some ways burdened by the same flaw: the desire to be one of the crowd. Smitty is friendly, but his excessive friendliness is often problematic, especially as it relies on drinking. Jerry, meanwhile, must work to listen to the better angels of his nature and ignore the temptation to go with the flow, infected with the emotions and attitudes of others.

Breaking from the pattern of contrasting characters, John and Peggy share the same critical flaw—a lack of communication. John doesn’t want to let Peggy in on the source of one of his great pleasures—roller-skating—and Peggy, in turn, is deeply hurt to be betrayed by John’s compartmentalizing his life in this way. Rather than addressing John about his Saturday activities, Peggy asks Nell to spy on him, and, instead of incorporating Peggy into his roller-skating, John hides it from her. In each case, they are failing to meet the requirements of their marriage, acting as combined lesson in successful relationships. Peggy and John are both motivated to keep secrets because they’ve been hurt in the past. Peggy’s experience with infidelity by her ex-husband has followed her, as has John’s experience with being shamed by his father, and these experiences shaped their interactions and turned John’s roller-skating secret—which Nell finds laughable—into a marriage-ending event.

Nell and Jeremy, following John’s discussion with Jeremy, seem to be on the same path as John and Peggy. Jeremy notes his own pleasure from video games, but he does not indicate an intention to tell Nell what John told Jeremy. Secret-keeping that has already been portrayed as problematic in the story.

As the narrator of “The Bootlegger,” Mary provides insight into and contrast with Tommy’s character. Tommy loves displaying his wealth and fulfilling his ideal of upper-class living; his interest in the concert series has more to do with conspicuous consumption than with any aesthetic enjoyment of the music. Mary, meanwhile, contrasts Tommy’s desires with simplicity, kindness, and peace. Mary notes how Tommy becomes obsessed with anything he perceives as unfairness, but Mary appears immune to such fixation, taking no issue with Mr. Fein’s recording. As the story progresses, this contrast expands, with Tommy becoming consumed by guilt while Mary instead enjoys Mr. Fein’s final recording. The contrast allows Towles to consider different ways to handle injustice with nuance.

Tommy shows the dangers of corruption by wealth, as he foregoes his own enjoyment of his opulence to wield his power against another audience member. In the end, he regrets his choice, indicating that Tommy’s flaw is his desire for confrontation, fueled by his perceived increase in social status. Mary, however, reaps the rewards of being kind; she takes in the unique experience in the music hall and of Mr. Fein’s recording without bitterness at the fact that Mr. Fein might be providing access to the music to someone not in attendance. Mary approaches the morality of Mr. Fein’s actions with nuance, seeing that the elderly man is not as much of a problem for the performances as Tommy’s indignation.

Mr. Fein and his daughter, Meredith, are static characters in “The Bootlegger” who have contrasting influence on Tommy’s life. After Tommy gets Mr. Fein banned from the concerts, Mr. Fein forgives Tommy. Mr. Fein sees not the immediate injustice of Tommy’s actions, but their bigger picture—Tommy’s interruption of his recordings has allowed Mr. Fein to overcome his grief over his wife’s death and move forward in his life. This redemptive moment allows Tommy the chance to escape his own guilt. Meredith, on the other hand, has a different point of view on the same event. As Tommy leaves Mr. Fein’s apartment, Meredith accosts him with her curse, assuring him that she will never forgive him for what he has done to her father.

Mr. Fein, like Mary or Pushkin, chooses the path of least resistance. Having lost his ability to record, he sees the situation in the best light, taking it as an opportunity to reflect and grow. Meredith, like Tommy, cannot abide what she sees as personal affront; seeing Tommy as the antagonist in her father’s story, she attacks Tommy, much as Tommy attacks Mr. Fein.

“The DiDomenico Fragment” centers on the aging Skinner, who worries he does not have enough money to sustain his lifestyle until his death. His character shows how the threat of poverty can warp a person’s view of the world, as Skinner attempts to betray his family for a finder’s fee. Over Skinner’s attempts at convincing Peter to sell his fragment of a valuable painting, though, Skinner discovers that family is its own kind of wealth, and he ends the story having grown closer to both Billy and Peter. At first, Skinner is defined by his greed and self-isolation, imagining the lavish vacation he will take with the funds from the sale of the painting and estranged from his relatives. However, when he is essentially punished for his manipulative actions, losing the finder’s fee at the last minute, he has the wisdom to see that he has earned this comeuppance.

Skinner’s major contribution to Peter’s family is his influence on the young Lucas, who develops a sense of justice and value over the course of the story. Initially, Lucas appears more refined than his parents, dressing like T. S. Eliot and displaying an understanding of the fragment that exceeds that of his parents. At the Met, Lucas appears uninterested in Skinner’s lectures about art and its transactional nature, but the condition he places on Reese’s purchase—that the painting must be displayed for public viewing—shows the attention Lucas paid to Skinner during their trip. In the end, Lucas’s only concern is the preservation of the painting as a cultural artifact—a noble goal that Skinner also pursued in his youth. Lucas is the embodiment of Skinner’s best qualities, showing Skinner’s influence over his family and the importance of being a positive influence.

Spun off from Towles’s novel, Rules of Civility, Eve is a transplant to Los Angeles from New York. In the novella “Eve in Hollywood,” Eve’s true motivations are largely unclear, though the insights Towles gives into her childhood—as well as the accident that left her visibly scarred in New York City—explain her wanton disregard for social conventions. Her family, specifically her mother, tried to enforce a rigid set of social rules for Eve to follow; travelling to Los Angeles serves as her way to escape those rules. Likewise, because of the large scar on her face, Eve is not a candidate for film stardom or the role of the movie ingénue, which also comes with its own behavioral expectations. In Los Angeles, Eve embraces her freedom, using her deductive abilities to become a quasi-sleuth on behalf of Olivia and befriending several people who occupy a similarly socially marginal space. The novella is a noir detective story, but Eve’s optimism, brains, and empathy allows the plot to move away from the typical noir tropes that everyone is corrupt and no good deed goes unpunished.

Eve’s defining characteristic is her defiance, especially in the face of men who misjudge her. Litsky, Finnegan, and even Charlie see Eve as unpredictable but innocuous, and they are surprised to find that she is exceedingly competent and single-minded. However, Eve’s main motivation is her freedom. Sensing a kindred spirit in Olivia, Eve fights on the actress’s behalf, which then becomes her main motivation to foil the blackmail plot that threatens many of Hollywood’s starlets. In the end, Eve succeeds in diffusing the danger, but realizes that Olivia is still bound by her contract with Jack Warner, implying that Eve will become the driving force behind Olivia de Havilland’s real life challenge to the film studio.

In “Eve in Hollywood,” Charlie is a former homicide detective, struggling with his relationship to his son, daughter-in-law, and grandson. Following the death of his wife, Betty, Charlie meets Eve on the train back to Los Angeles and rediscovers his love of detective work and the pursuit of justice, helping Eve to stop the blackmailers targeting young Hollywood actresses. Charlie is a dynamic character; he begins the novella resigned to retirement and grief, but slowly overcomes these challenges and gets a new lease on life as the novella progresses. After years on the police force, this change is a form of redemption.

Charlie’s defining trait is his willingness to admit his mistakes and learn from them. After his mistake at Wendell’s home—not anticipating an ambush—Charlie approaches Finnegan’s house with greater care. Even though Finnegan is younger and stronger than Charlie, Charlie trusts Eve and challenges Finnegan, delaying Finnegan’s actions long enough for Eve’s Rohypnol to take effect. In the end, Charlie decides to stay in Los Angeles, like Eve, because he sees how he can be a force of good in Hollywood.

Olivia de Havilland is an actual actress, most famous for playing Melanie in the 1939 adaptation of Gone with the Wind. In the novella, Olivia’s timidity is a foil to Eve’s confidence and determination. Through Eve’s influence, Olivia builds her self-assurance, deciding to pursue more challenging roles as an actress. For most of the novella, though, Olivia is a traditional noir damsel in distress, whom the quasi-detective Eve needs to save; Olivia avoids most of the action, as Eve takes care of both Litsky and Finnegan.

At the end of the novella, readers are left to speculate on the transformation Olivia will undergo with Eve’s influence. Olivia and Eve had similar upbringings, but Eve transcends the gendered restrictions under which she was raised, becoming a force of agency and will. The novella foreshadows that with Eve’s help, Olivia will find the strength to advance the historical actual lawsuits Olivia de Havilland leveled against Warner Bros. Pictures in 1943, challenging Warner’s attempt to add six months to her seven-year contract. The implication of the novella is that Eve, who is angry about Olivia’s oppression under her contract, provides the impetus for this lawsuit.