Table for Two: Stories

In this collection of six short stories and one novella, bestseller Towles (The Lincoln Highway) seeks to highlight the uniqueness of each individual person amid the general mundanity of human experience. “New York: The Line” touches on the small ways people impact the lives around them, while “Hasta Luego” showcases the kindness of strangers, the randomness of chance interactions, and what it means to love and forgive. While the somewhat-lethargic pacing detracts from the narrative, the closing novella, “Eve in Hollywood,” continues the story of The Rules of Civility’s Evelyn Ross, who is also slated to appear in Towles’s next novel. Narrator Edoardo Ballerini reads deliberately and pulls off the New Yorker’s noir-ish fast-talking style with aplomb, but his other character voices leave something to be desired. The titular Eve, noted to have a “Midwestern lilt,” sounds distinctly Southern, and even the born-and-bred Angelenos sound like they’re hailing a Manhattan taxi. J. Smith-Cameron narrates one of the stories, “The Bootlegger,” and while the pacing and beats of the story land much better, her raspy interpretation does not.