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Book cover of Rules of Civility
Rules of CivilityAmor TowlesRules of Civility, book 1

Characters in Rules of Civility

5 characters, main characters first.

Main characters

  • Katey Kontent

    A young woman in her early twenties who spends the final months of 1937 navigating romance, ambition, and social circles in New York City.

Supporting characters

  • Tinker Grey

    A charming, well-connected young banker with royal-blue eyes whom Katey and her roommate Eve meet in a Greenwich Village jazz bar on New Year's Eve 1937; his poise draws both women in over the year that follows.

  • Eve Ross

    Katey's vivacious, reckless boardinghouse roommate, whose life takes a sharply different turn after an accident partway through the year the novel covers.

  • Wallace Wolcott

    A quietly wealthy, unpretentious friend of Tinker's who teaches Katey to shoot skeet and later leaves New York to fight in the Spanish Civil War.

  • Anne Grandyn

    A sharp, worldly older woman who moves in the same elite circles as Tinker and takes a keen, not entirely explained, interest in Katey.