Author Amor Towles compares writing a short story to sitting next to a couple fighting loudly at a restaurant.
“You can’t help but overhear and you start to try to figure out what’s going on,” Mr. Towles said in recent a talk at the Performing Arts Center. “You’re like, wow, what did he do last night? Is that his wife? How old is she? And who’s Tony? You’re piecing pieces together and then just when you’re kind of beginning to grasp what’s happening, they get their check and leave.”
Mr. Towles spoke on Sunday at the PAC as part of the Martha’s Vineyard Author Series, discussing his writing and his Island ties.
Known for bestselling novels Rules of Civility, The Lincoln Highway and A Gentleman in Moscow, Mr. Towles' latest book, Table For Two, is his first short story collection. The book was published in April.
Mr. Towles has a long history on the Island as a seasonal resident of West Chop. He said he knew he wanted to write fiction since the first grade when his teacher brought David McCord, a poet, to talk to the class.
“I loved the wordplay in his poetry and the rhyme schemes and the meters,” Mr Towles told the audience. “I loved the way he would observe little things in life. I was very excited by the signed book that I brought home. And that night, I began writing poetry that copied his poetry and that was it.”
Mr. Towles detailed his process of writing, talking about the “design process” and how that can take years, often overlapping with other works that are closer to being finished.
“I will tend to sketch out all the major events and characters, and then I will then spend a couple of years filling out books where I will try to imagine everything that happens, all the characters or backgrounds and personalities, all the settings, the interactions,” he told the audience. “When I feel like I know the thing from beginning to end and I can see it all in my head, then I outline my structure. So this is sort of a multi-year process just to get me to the process of beginning to write chapter one.”
The talk was moderated by journalist and novelist Beth Macy. Both authors have had their respective books translated to film — Ms. Macy with Dopesick and Mr. Towles with A Gentleman in Moscow. Mr. Towles said that while he was involved with hiring and casting decisions, he was not in the writers’ room.
“Well, I am not a collaborator,” he said, as the crowd responded with laughter. “That’s what I discovered. I do not like to collaborate. So I stepped back.”
Mr. Towles recalled two key Vineyard memories that impacted his career. One involved his father paying him during the summer to read longer books, including The Fellowship of The Ring, Shogun and 100 Years of Solitude, which became one of his favorite books to this day.
The other Vineyard memory was reading a book a day from a list of 100 books a professor gave him.
“I would be here for two weeks and I’d read 13 novels in 13 days, all from this list,” he said. “That to this day has had a huge impact on me in terms of understanding the scope of the different ways that one can approach stories.”
One of the main characters in Table For Two is Eve Ross, who was first introduced in Rules of Civility. When asked by an audience member if Eve would be seen again in future works, Mr. Towles said she would.
When pressed further about revisiting other characters in future books, he was more tight-lipped.
“I mentioned that Eve [would be back], but I will not tell you the other ones,” he joked as the audience laughed. “I shouldn’t have told you about Eve.”
Next up for the Author Series is Percival Everett on July 21. Visit mvbookfestival.com.
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