The Imperfectionists

‘Off the record, who is it?’
He hesitates. ‘I don’t see why you need to know.’
But he does see, of course. ‘It’s my son.’
Their chuckles are audible over the speakerphone. ‘Are you serious?’

Lloyd Burko is having troubles with his sources, with his technology at the paper, and with his family. The Imperfectionists is a novel about the peculiar people who write and read an international newspaper based in Rome: from the obituary reporter who will do anything to avoid work, to the dog-obsessed publisher who seems less interested in his struggling newspaper than in his magnificent basset hound, Schopenhauer. While the news of the day rushes past, the true front-page stories for all of them are the blunders and triumphs of their own lives.

Tom Rachman’s debut novel is beautifully written, intelligent, and makes us care about people who are both flawed and immensely engaging—about their lives, their families, and about the larger family that is their newspaper.

The Imperfectionists touches on the fall of newspapers and the rise of technology but, above all, it is a wise and moving novel about unusual, endearing characters.

Praise for The Imperfectionists:

‘Rachman’s prose is taut, evocative, flecked with lyrical dapples throughout…and he’s a clever storyteller.’
— Craig Sherborne

‘Weaving a compelling narrative with 11 main characters could be tricky, but this talented debut novelist pulls it off…A clever critique of the newspaper industry, and a fascinating character study into damaged people.’
— Marie Claire

‘[A] zinger of a debut…Chapters read like exquisite short stories, turning out the intersecting lives of the men and women who produce the paper…there are more than enough sublime moments, unexpected turns and sheer inky wretchedness to warrant putting this on the shelf next to other great newspaper novels.’ (starred review)
— Publishers Weekly

‘The Imperfectionists will strongly satisfy…a magnificent tribute to the fall of newspapers.’
— Vogue

‘One of the best books I have read in a long time….The light that shines from the bushel of this novel is the author’s skill in writing complex and believable characters who inhabit a story that has a technical structure within spitting distance of brilliance. He gives us the archetypal clichés from the publishing world….Rachman takes these character tropes and turns them upside down, so that the reader comes to really identify and care for some characters and loathe others. For me, this is the litmus test of literature—it makes the reader feel something. This novel is like the movie Sliding Doors, where parallel lives run simultaneously, but without the visual aid of film to keep track of events. It is testament to Rachman’s skill that he pulls this off…The Imperfectionists is less “im” than perfection.’
— Weekend Press

‘The Imperfectionists is a winning mixture of warmth, wit, poignancy, quiet insight and powerful melodrama.’
— Courier-Mail

‘The brilliance of Tom Rachman’s novel is how it acknowledges on almost every page the haphazardness of journalism, the imperfections that somehow, against all the odds, produce a newspaper at regular intervals…. Rachman captures superbly the insularity and insecurity that permeate most newspaper offices. The Imperfectionists joins that short list of fine novels about journalism, which includes Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop and Michael Frayn’s Towards the End of the Morning…Tom Rachman, as with his distinguished predecessors, avoids caricature, to concentrate on the strengths and weaknesses of journalists as human beings, with blood in their veins, not ink.’
— Age

About the Author

Tom Rachman was born in 1974 in London, and grew up in Vancouver. After a Master’s degree in journalism at Columbia University, he worked as an editor at the foreign desk of Associated Press in New York, then did a stint as a reporter in India and Sri Lanka. In 2002, he was sent to Rome as an AP correspondent and from 2006, he worked part-time as an editor at the International Herald Tribune in Paris. Tom now lives in Rome, where he is working on his second novel. The Imperfectionists was longlisted for the Giller Prize 2010.