Author Name:
Amor Towles
Amor Towles (born 1964) is an American novelist. He is best known for his bestselling novels Rules of Civility (2011),[1] A Gentleman in Moscow (2016),[2] and The Lincoln Highway (2021).[3] Towles began writing following a career in investment banking.
Early life and education
Towles was born and raised in Boston, to Stokley Porter Towles, an investment banker at Brown Brothers Harriman and a philanthropist, and Holly Hollingsworth. His parents later divorced. He has a brother, Stokley Jr.; a sister, Kimbrough; and two stepbrothers.[4] When Towles was 10 years old, he threw a bottle with a message into the Atlantic Ocean. Several weeks later, he received a letter from Harrison Salisbury, then managing editor of The New York Times, who had found the bottle. Towles and Salisbury corresponded for many years afterward.[5]
He graduated from Yale College and received a Master of Arts degree in English from Stanford University, where he was a Scowcroft Fellow. The thesis for his M.A. titled Temptations of Pleasure was published in The Paris Review in 1989.[6]
Career
After graduating from Yale University, Towles was set to teach in China on a two-year fellowship from the Yale China Association. However, this was abruptly canceled due to the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989.[7] From 1991 to 2012, he worked as an investment manager and director of research at Select Equity Group in New York.[8][9]
When Towles was a young man, he credited Peter Matthiessen, nature writer, novelist, and one of the founders of The Paris Review, as the primary inspiration for writing novels.[10] Towles' first novel, Rules of Civility, was successful beyond his expectations.[11]
His second novel, A Gentleman in Moscow, which was on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list for 59 weeks,[12] was a finalist for the 2016 Kirkus Prize for Fiction.[13] It was also longlisted for the 2018 International Dublin Literary Award.[14] A television adaptation starring Ewan McGregor was released on Paramount+ in March 2024.[15]
Towles' third novel, The Lincoln Highway, was published on October 5, 2021.[16] It was chosen by Amazon as the best book of 2021.[17] As of May 15, 2022, it had been on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list for 30 weeks.[18] In April 2024, Towles released a book of short fiction titled Table for Two.[6]
