A Gentleman in Moscow

by Amor Towles · 2016

When a Bolshevik tribunal deems him an unrepentant aristocrat in 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is sentenced to house arrest in Moscow’s opulent Metropol Hotel, a grand building that overlooks the Kremlin. Confined to a modest attic suite, the cultured, witty count never imagined that a life spent within the hotel’s walls could become a window onto a nation in turmoil. Over decades of revolution, war, and cultural upheaval, Rostov forges unexpected friendships, mentors a young girl, and discovers purpose in the smallest rituals of daily life. Through his keen observations and quiet generosity, the novel paints a vivid portrait of a changing Russia while celebrating the resilience of the human spirit, all rendered in Amor Towles’s elegant, humor‑infused prose.