Rules of Civility

by Amor Towles

As the Wolcotts were in the paper business, they had access to every kind of wrapping paper on earth: forest greens patterned with candy canes; velvety reds with pipe-smoking Santas in sleighs. But the family tradition was to wrap everything in a heavy white stock that was delivered to the house by the roll. Then they dressed the gifts with a different-colored ribbon for each member of the clan.

Christmas with Wallace: In Chapter Fifteen, as Wallace Wolcott prepares to go fight in the Spanish Civil War, he and Katey shop for Christmas presents and wrap them so that they can be delivered to his family when he is overseas. As is the family tradition, all the presents are wrapped in white paper. This little detail is drawn from my life. When I was a boy, my grandfather ran a commercial paper company and at Christmas time, my grandmother would have a thick white paper stock delivered to her house by the roll. So on Christmas day, rather than presents wrapped in an array of red, green, and gold, all the presents under the tree were wrapped in white. The notion of having different colored ribbons to identify the presents of the different family members is an added element drawn from my imagination. In this scene, after wrapping all the presents, Wallace Wolcott takes the black-dialed officer’s watch from his wrist (which he inherited from his father) and wraps it for his nephew and namesake, the young Wallace Wolcott Martin. It is Wallace Martin, eventually known as “Woolly”, who some years later becomes a central character in THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY and who, in turn, hands the black-dialed officer’s watch down to the young Billy Watson.