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mikatchu_ 's review for:
The Imperfectionists
by Tom Rachman
I first heard of this book in a podcast this fall of 2021, then just a few days later one of my neighbours had put it in our “little free library” in the stairwell. Small world, huh.
The book consists of several short stories following different characters working at an English language newspaper in Rome, and the stories intertwine with one another, painting a full picture of life at the newspaper. We meet Lloyd Burko who desperately seeks his next headline and is willing to hurt loved ones in the process, we meet Hardy Benjamin who falls in love with an irish slacker who ridicule her in his lousy stand up show and Abbey Pinnola who on a cross atlantic flights end up next to someone she just fired. Between each chapter we follow the story from the founding of the newspaper in the fifties to its decline in the present time.
The stories are diverse and we meet our characters in some moment of crisis - it’s often both painful, heartmoving and funny. They don’t always make the best decisions - they are in fact very imperfect. My only reservation is that the author had not done a good enough job at distinguishing between the different characters - everyone has the exact same way of speaking.
I really enjoyed this book and will probably remember it for a long time. I also really think that Wes Anderson must have gotten some inspiration for The French Dispatch from this book, since there are many similarities.
The book consists of several short stories following different characters working at an English language newspaper in Rome, and the stories intertwine with one another, painting a full picture of life at the newspaper. We meet Lloyd Burko who desperately seeks his next headline and is willing to hurt loved ones in the process, we meet Hardy Benjamin who falls in love with an irish slacker who ridicule her in his lousy stand up show and Abbey Pinnola who on a cross atlantic flights end up next to someone she just fired. Between each chapter we follow the story from the founding of the newspaper in the fifties to its decline in the present time.
The stories are diverse and we meet our characters in some moment of crisis - it’s often both painful, heartmoving and funny. They don’t always make the best decisions - they are in fact very imperfect. My only reservation is that the author had not done a good enough job at distinguishing between the different characters - everyone has the exact same way of speaking.
I really enjoyed this book and will probably remember it for a long time. I also really think that Wes Anderson must have gotten some inspiration for The French Dispatch from this book, since there are many similarities.