The Imperfectionists

In “The Imperfectionists,” Tom Rachman’s impressive debut novel, a quirky English-language international newspaper struggles to stay relevant in a changing world.

The Rome-based publication’s staff and readership are an odd bunch.

There’s the aging, one-time star correspondent, who doesn’t own a computer and is reduced to begging for work while his wife openly has an affair with another man. There’s the bitter, often incompetent copy editor who hates her coworkers, dreams of quitting, but is reduced to grateful tears when she avoids being fired. There’s the eccentric publisher who never goes to the office, preferring to toddle around his dead grandfather’s mansion speaking to his only friend, a basset hound. And there’s the loyal reader, an aging Italian woman who obsessively devours every edition of the paper, her only source of information. However she’s about 10 years behind, and the papers are piling up. She becomes aware of major world events years after they’ve occurred.

I should disclose here that Tom and I worked together at The Associated Press in New York in the late 90s. Anyone who’s ever worked in a newsroom will recognize these characters. What most impressed me about “The Imperfectionists” was Tom’s ability to create sympathetic, fully formed figures everybody can relate to.

Tom charts the history of the ill-fated newspaper in short vignettes between the chapter-length examinations of the many individual characters. The newspaper is born, struggles, excels and then fades – just like people do. The diverse group who are there in the publication’s decline also go through changes – some hilarious, some heartbreaking. The newspaper they alternately adore and despise becomes the one constant in their lives, the one thing they are loathe to let go.

By setting his novel in one of the 21st century’s most precarious concerns – a newspaper, and a newspaper purposely without a Web site, for Christ’s sake (“The Internet is to news what car horns are to music” one editor says) – Tom’s account of people trying to hang on to their place in the world is that much more poignant.

Like any good reporter, Tom is able to present information without judgment. The characters he introduces are flawed and flailing, but his ability to put the reader inside the varied worlds of the protagonists makes them all sympathetic. You root for them, even though you often shouldn’t.

There are no wasted words in this book, every scene and detail move the characters and story forward. “The Imperfectionists” will make you laugh and cry. It’s the rare novel that can shift emotional tone effortlessly. The newspaper at the heart of the story is mediocre. “The Imperfectionists” is magnificent.

By CHRIS GRYGIEL

(“The Imperfectionists,” published by The Dial Press, is being released in the United States April 6)

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