The Imperfectionists

He sits in his cubicle in the far reaches of the newsroom and turns on his computer. As it rumbles to life, he glances around, at the senior editors’ offices along the walls, the horseshoe copydesk in the center of the newsroom, the spattered white carpeting that smells of stale coffee and dried microwave soup, its acrylic edges curling up but held down in places with silver gaffer’s tape. Several cubicles were empty nowadays, the former occupants long retired but never replaced, their old post-its fluttering whenever windows open. Under the abandoned desks, technicians have stashed broken dot-matrix printers and dead cathode-ray-tube monitors, while the corner of the room is a graveyard of crippled rolling chairs that flip backward when sat on. Nobody throws anything away here; nobody knows whose job that is. (pg. 41)

I have to admit I have a slight distrust for books that get unrelenting rave reviews from the press which in part stems from my complete antipathy for Kathyrn Stockett’s The Help. So reading Tom Rachman’s The Imperfectionists wasn’t on my radar. The novel appeared on multiple best of 2010 lists, was a New York Times bestseller, and was heavily promoted by Amazon. I read the reviews and thought I would pass. And then it was chosen by one of my book groups as the December selection and I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised.

The Imperfectionists is a series of linked stories about the employees (and one reader) of an international English newspaper based in Rome. Each story is focused on one particular employee and are interspersed by the story of the newspaper itself. As the reporters work on stories, the editorial staff does its thing, and the administrative staff struggles to keep the paper operating, the private lives of these individuals is put on display for the readers. Obituary writer Arthur Gopal struggles with an important interview while dealing with a family tragedy, business reporter Hardy Benjamin deals with a robbery in her home as well as her intense loneliness, and reader Ornella De Monterecchi tries to find the strength to move on with life.

The stories are slightly cynical and not all together happy in outcome. My book group was hard pressed to name a character they liked although I found them fascinating and interesting. I would have liked to have had dinner with quite a few of the characters but I remain unsure if I would actually want to work in close contact with them. I did find some of the stories harder to take than others and we were universally in agreement with our least favorite part of the book. However, I liked the how Rackmann pulled this diverse group of people together, not only through their connection with the paper, but also through what they go through internally. Rackmann holds the mirror of self-perception up to each character and reflects it back to them. Some hold up to the scrutiny and make changes or come to some sort of self-acceptance, others retreat to stay in their current state of disillusionment. All this is flavored by the particular circumstances of being an expatriate – living and working in a foreign country.

While The Imperfectionists will not make my best of reads list, it was engaging to read. Rackmann makes his characters accessible, flaws and all, and interesting. I wanted to know what happened to them and why they made the choices they made. And we did have a good discussion not only on the book but on the state of newspapers  today, how individuals receive their news, and if the method of delivery effects our perception of events. All in all, a good evening with bookish friends.

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