Thoughts on The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
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Critique
Rachman is a writer. He is a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism, has served as a foreign journalist for the Associated Press, and worked as an editor at the International Herald Tribune. In his beginning novel, The Imperfectionists, there are no unearned creative flights, no decadent Icarus risks. He reports strictly on a mankind he knows: the untidy lives and disconnected declination of journalists and journalism, and their cross failures, flaws, and fulminations. Far from perfect — Rachman has acknowledged himself an eponymous out — it is a sound intelligent book of humbly discreet ambitiousness.
Summary
Set against the gorgeous backcloth of Rome, Tom Rachman’s wry, vibrant entry follows the topsy-turvy nonpublic lives of the reporters, editors, and executives of an international English language paper as they try to prepare it, and themselves, afloat.
Fifty years and numerous changes have come as the consequence since the paper was founded by an ambiguous millionaire, and now, amid the treated carpeting and dismal office decor, the staff’s individualized dramas seem far more strategic than the regular headlines. Kathleen, the imperious editorial director is pain from dishonesty in her open marriage; Arthur the lazy obit communicator is changed by a private tragedy; Abby, the embattled financial functionary, discovers that her job cuts and her love life are intertwined in a most unannounced way. Out in the field, a veteran Paris freelancer goes to courageous lengths for his next byline, piece the new Cairo stranger is mercilessly manipulated by an outrageous war correspondent with an outsized ego. And in the shadows is the separated youthful publisher who pays more attention to his prized basset hound Schopenhauer than to the fate of his family’s quirky press.
As the era of print media retreats infont of the Internet age and this imperfect crew stumbles toward an unsafe future, the newspaper’s rich chronicle is revealed, including the astonishing facts about its founder’s intentions.
Alive, swirling, and highly original, The Imperfectionists will constitute Tom Rachman as one of our most apperceptive, assured literate talents.
