The imperfectionists

This is the debut novel of Tom Rachman, a young writer and journalist who has worked as a correspondent for the Associated Press, stationed in Rome, and as an editor at the International Herald Tribune in Paris as well.

And it might well have been his experience (although we cannot deny his talent, as well) the start up for this amazing debut gem.

This unusually structured novel narrates within eleven chapters the private lives of the staff and other characters related to an unnamed English language newspaper based in Rome. These stories interlink or interrelate to each other, and though they could well be wonderful short stories on its own, they cleverly create a beautiful, sharp and solid framework that becomes an awesome novel.  Rachman intersperse these eleven chapters, narrated in present tense, with plenty of good dialogues and well constructed characters, with little chapters differentiated by the use of italics in which we get to know the story of the creation of the actual unnamed newspaper, since 1953 until 2007.

Through this 247 pages we get to know and feel for the lives of journalists, editors and correspondents in a world where keeping afloat their jobs and the newspapers becomes harder every day.  And the author has found a way to do this by creating a sharp and original novel but also a definitively informative and entertaining page turner.

To get more information on this novel or to purchase it click here.

Laia Vilaseca.