Book of the Month–January 2012
The Imperfectionists
By: Tom Rachman
A failing English-language newspaper in Rome provides the setting for Rachman’s debut novel. Although it was once a famed starting point for noted American journalists, the 50-year-old paper has suffered in recent years from declining advertising revenue, shrinking readership and competition from online news sources.
Written in a series of linked stories, Rachman profiles the employees of the newspaper as they struggle with the reality of their situation and with the complications in their own lives. A young correspondent is manipulated by an egotistical war reporter. Although editor Herman Cohen maintains complete objectivity about his work but is blind to the failings of his close friend. Arthur Gopal, the newspaper’s obituary writer, finds his life transformed by a tragedy. An aging freelancer resorts to desperate measures for a story while the young publisher pays more attention to his Basset Hound than to the newspaper that is his family’s legacy.
Also available as:
Large Print
eBook
Talking Book (restricted to Print Disabled patrons)
Book Reviews
The Globe and Mail
The Guardian
New York Times
About the Author
Tom Rachman was born in London and grew up in Vancouver. He studied Cinema at the University of Toronto and completed a Master’s degree in Journalism at Columbia University. His work as a journalist has taken him around the world, including Rome, the setting for this book.
The Imperfectionists is his first novel.
Author Interviews
Macleans
The Walrus
Read Alikes
If you enjoyed The Imperfectionists, you may also like:
Fiction
The Fourth Estate by Jeffrey Archer
The Golden Age by Gore Vidal
Sunset Park by Paul Auster
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
Non-Fiction
The Magnificent Medills: the McCormick-Patterson Dynasty by Megan McKinley
Personal History by Katherine Graham
The Uncrowned King by Kenneth Whyte
Comments