Tom Rachman‘s The Imperfectionists follows the personal lives of a staff of an English language newspaper based in Rome, Italy. Each chapter shows a glimpse into each character’s lives and could easily stand on their own as short stories. At the end of each chapter is a short interlude in which we see the beginnings of the newspaper these characters work for spanning from 1953-2007. The main chapters take place in 2007.
We get to see a range of characters from an aging Paris correspondent to a newbie trying his hand at journalism for the first time to an eccentric older lady who has been reading every issue of the paper front-to-back but who hasn’t gotten past 1994 yet. Each brief glimpse into these character’s lives is both funny and heart-wrenching. Each story is about a moment in which these characters realize something important, either about themselves or about someone in their life. These realizations change the characters, sometimes in a subtle way and sometimes in a major way.
Rachman does a phenomenal job of making his characters real in a short amount of space. He also has an interesting way of writing; he makes quick jumps in time and place in order to get his characters where he wants them to be as quickly as possible. This tactic is at first jolting, but over time one adjusts to it.
While the novel is largely about the characters involved with the newspaper, it is also largely about the newspaper itself. We are given a brief history of it through the interlude chapters and its “current” state in 2007. Rachman has one of his characters give a speech about the future of the newspaper industry, sentiments that have been widely expressed in real life about the struggling industry:
“Obviously, we are living in an era when technology is moving at an unheralded pace. I can’t tell you if in fifty years we’ll be publishing in the same format. Actually, I can probably tell you we won’t be publishing in the same way, that we’ll be innovating then, just as we are now. But I assure you of this: news will survive, and quality coverage will always earn a premium. Whatever you want to call it-news, text, content-someone has to report it, someone has to write it, someone has to edit it.”
I greatly enjoyed this novel, it was one of the best books I have read in a long time and I eagerly await more from this talented writer.
Bent Shelf Book Reviews 