Perfect
A spellbinding novel that will resonate with readers of Mark Haddon, Louise Erdrich, and John Irving, Perfect tells the story of a young boy who is thrown into the murky, difficult realities of the adult world with far-reaching consequences. Byron Hemmings wakes to a morning that looks like any other: his school uniform draped over his wooden desk chair, his sister arguing over the breakfast cereal, the click of his mother's heels as she crosses the kitchen. But when the three of them leave home, driving into a dense summer fog, the morning takes an unmistakable turn. In one terrible moment, something happens, something completely unexpected and at odds with life as Byron understands it. While his mother seems not to have noticed, eleven-year-old Byron understands that from now on nothing can be the same. What happened and who is to blame? Over the days and weeks that follow, Byron's perfect world is shattered. Unable to trust his parents, he confides in his best friend, James, and together they concoct a plan. . . . As she did in her debut, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce has imagined bewitching characters who find their ordinary lives unexpectedly thrown into chaos, who learn that there are times when children must become parents to their parents, and who discover that in confronting the hard truths about their pasts, they will forge unexpected relationships that have profound and surprising impacts. Brimming with love, forgiveness, and redemption, Perfect will cement Rachel Joyce's reputation as one of fiction's brightest talents. Praise for Perfect "Touching, eccentric . . . Joyce does an inviting job of setting up these mysterious circumstances, and of drawing Byron's magical closeness with Diana."--Janet Maslin, The New York Times
"Haunting . . . compelling."--Minneapolis Star Tribune
"[Joyce] triumphantly returns with Perfect. . . . As Joyce probes the souls of Diana, Byron and Jim, she reveals--slowly and deliberately, as if peeling back a delicate onion skin--the connection between the two stories, creating a poignant, searching tale."--O: The Oprah Magazine
"Perfect touches on class, mental illness, and the ways a psyche is formed or broken. It has the tenor of a horror film, and yet at the end, in some kind of contortionist trick, the narrative unfolds into an unexpected burst of redemption. [Verdict: ] Buy It."--New York
"Joyce's dark, quiet follow-up to her successful debut, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, could easily become a book club favorite. . . . Perfect is the kind of book that blossoms under thoughtful examination, its slow tendencies redeemed by moments of loveliness and insight. However sad, Joyce's messages--about the limitations of time and control, the failures of adults and the fears of children, and our responsibility for our own imprisonment and freedom--have a gentle ring of truth to them."--The Washington Post "There is a poignancy to Joyce's narrative that makes for her most memorable writing."--NPR's All Things Considered
"Haunting . . . compelling."--Minneapolis Star Tribune
"[Joyce] triumphantly returns with Perfect. . . . As Joyce probes the souls of Diana, Byron and Jim, she reveals--slowly and deliberately, as if peeling back a delicate onion skin--the connection between the two stories, creating a poignant, searching tale."--O: The Oprah Magazine
"Perfect touches on class, mental illness, and the ways a psyche is formed or broken. It has the tenor of a horror film, and yet at the end, in some kind of contortionist trick, the narrative unfolds into an unexpected burst of redemption. [Verdict: ] Buy It."--New York
"Joyce's dark, quiet follow-up to her successful debut, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, could easily become a book club favorite. . . . Perfect is the kind of book that blossoms under thoughtful examination, its slow tendencies redeemed by moments of loveliness and insight. However sad, Joyce's messages--about the limitations of time and control, the failures of adults and the fears of children, and our responsibility for our own imprisonment and freedom--have a gentle ring of truth to them."--The Washington Post "There is a poignancy to Joyce's narrative that makes for her most memorable writing."--NPR's All Things Considered
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Community Reviews
Rachel Joyce has become one of my favorite contemporary writers. Her breakout bestselling novel, "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry," was brilliantly rendered. The sequel, "The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy," was just about almost as good.
"Perfect" is not perfect, and it goes on for too long. But overall I was compelled to turn the pages of this story about two adolescent boys, James and Byron, who become mightily concerned about the addition of two seconds to the clock they believe is scheduled to occur. It is from the start a strain to believe that two 11-year-olds would be so concerned about the metaphysical implications of changing time, but letting that aside, Byron's distress about it, at the very second he believes it is happening, leads to an accident that changes both boys' lives forever.
Chapters weave between the present, when one of the grown boys is now a middle-aged man living with mental illness, and the unfurling of the original turn of events in 1972. Byron's mother, Diana, is a key character, a woman who is both beautiful, elegant, and insecure, and the person Byron loves more than anyone in the world. His domineering father, home only on weekends, is cold, distant and increasingly menacing.
When Diana tries to become friends with a woman named Beverly, whose daughter she has accidentally injured, Byron and James both worry at their increasing connection. Beverly is not the "right" sort of friend for upper-middle-class Diana, and readers can see that Beverly is also manipulating Diana's fears that one day, the truth about the accident she caused will become public.
It's a depressing downward spiral for everyone in Byron's family, leading to tragedy. I found the plot twist at the end to be very clever and it took me by surprise, though I know other readers disagree, finding it predictable. She ends on a hopeful note for the character with mental illness, though given his decades-long suffering, this premise seems unrealistic.
Overall, though, Joyce is in full command of her pen, writing evocative descriptions of both landscape and personalities in a way that leaves this writer in awe.
"Perfect" is not perfect, and it goes on for too long. But overall I was compelled to turn the pages of this story about two adolescent boys, James and Byron, who become mightily concerned about the addition of two seconds to the clock they believe is scheduled to occur. It is from the start a strain to believe that two 11-year-olds would be so concerned about the metaphysical implications of changing time, but letting that aside, Byron's distress about it, at the very second he believes it is happening, leads to an accident that changes both boys' lives forever.
Chapters weave between the present, when one of the grown boys is now a middle-aged man living with mental illness, and the unfurling of the original turn of events in 1972. Byron's mother, Diana, is a key character, a woman who is both beautiful, elegant, and insecure, and the person Byron loves more than anyone in the world. His domineering father, home only on weekends, is cold, distant and increasingly menacing.
When Diana tries to become friends with a woman named Beverly, whose daughter she has accidentally injured, Byron and James both worry at their increasing connection. Beverly is not the "right" sort of friend for upper-middle-class Diana, and readers can see that Beverly is also manipulating Diana's fears that one day, the truth about the accident she caused will become public.
It's a depressing downward spiral for everyone in Byron's family, leading to tragedy. I found the plot twist at the end to be very clever and it took me by surprise, though I know other readers disagree, finding it predictable. She ends on a hopeful note for the character with mental illness, though given his decades-long suffering, this premise seems unrealistic.
Overall, though, Joyce is in full command of her pen, writing evocative descriptions of both landscape and personalities in a way that leaves this writer in awe.
Any writer who can write a sentence like "If Byron ever tried to hug [his father], and sometimes he wished he could, the embrace ran away at the last minute and became a handshake," as though it just flowed off her pen in the first 50 pages of a book sets up high expectations in her readers. Not only is this a beautiful sentence to read, but it also tells us everything we need to know about Byron's relationship with his father.
Joyce's language does not disappoint throughout the book, but the pacing does. There's a lot of tension in this book, which is interesting because it doesn't feel like a lot actually happens. Most of the energy seems to come from the collective inability of all the characters to get beyond their own anxieties and actually fix the situations in which they find themselves. And that's just not something I have any patience for, either in print, or in real life.
Joyce's language does not disappoint throughout the book, but the pacing does. There's a lot of tension in this book, which is interesting because it doesn't feel like a lot actually happens. Most of the energy seems to come from the collective inability of all the characters to get beyond their own anxieties and actually fix the situations in which they find themselves. And that's just not something I have any patience for, either in print, or in real life.
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