The Imperfectionists (novel)

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman is a novel came along at the right time for me. I had been reading non-fiction, and prior to that mostly jazz-age stuff. I was browsing the bookstore at lunch and saw this paperback on the table for sale. I glanced at the story and saw the words "Rome" and "Journalism" and that was about all I needed to pick this up.

I studied abroad in Rome my junior year of college, so anything having to do with the city always interests me. I haven't found much contemporary fiction based in Rome, let alone written by a North-American perspective (Canadian, to be exact). I was looking forward to doing my best to identify the non-standard street names, but to be honest I haven't spent the time to look them up. That's not to say I don't spend time re-exploring Rome, because I do. Often I spend the last few minutes before drifting off to sleep in Rome. I wander the streets I'm most familiar with and do my best to reconstruct buildings, sights, smells, meals, feelings I had when I lived there. I feel like in 5 months my brain was permanently imprinted with more vivid memories than full years combined. Why is that?

The novel itself is structured in a way that I tend to enjoy - a collection of individual pieces that are more like character profiles (think Trainspotting), all centered around an international English newspaper based in modern (2006) Rome. Rachman is our omniscient narrator, weaving the lives of the paper's staff and management together as as semi-chronological mosaic with italicized intermissions that construct the history and back story of the business. As I progressed through the book, it was fun to compare any given character's perspective from their chapter to their portrayal and interactions in other chapters; the dialogue, eccentricities and flaws ring loudly of ensemble cast indie-movie...

But then there's the city. I'll admit, although Rome is the canvas I wanted to soak up, I was more enthralled with the characters than relishing in self-satisfying travel writing. Instead of copping out and letting the city interfere, Rachman effortlessly allowed Rome to embellish the stories instead of conquer them.

You can pick up a copy of this book by clicking this link below.