The method in which each of Rachman’s “imperfectionists” handles their challenges ultimately determines their fate – including the fate of the paper itself. What I found truly unique about The Imperfectionists was its underlying philosophy: the world is truly what you make of it. In other words, Rachman creates idiosyncratic and realistic characters in our image. It takes someone with an obvious love for others to recognize that a hapless past often lies beneath us all. Tom Rachman obviously knows journalism, but he knows people even better. Are these tragedies isolated to one’s profession, or to one’s lifestyle? (Rachman, born in London, England, raised in Vancouver, Canada, is a journalist himself, having worked in both Rome and Paris.) But it also begs the question: Just how reflective is The Imperfectionists to the realities of Rachman’s former colleagues? Or is Rachman just onto something much deeper. From its Mad Men-like origins in the 1950s, by founder Cyrus Ott, to the present day, run by Ott’s uninterested grandson Oliver, The Imperfectionists deftly explores the challenges that so many papers face today in competition with their online counterparts. The chapters themselves get linked together with excerpts of the paper’s beginnings.
While many of the characters play supporting roles, in the novel's multiple chapters, they soon become misunderstood colleagues outside of their section. Each chapter is dedicated to cracking open the life of one of the characters and then relentlessly showing us what makes them tick. It profiles the staff members, plus one reader, of the paper. The n ovel reads likes a series of short stories.
The Imperfectionists revolves around an English newspaper in Rome circa 2007. He examines with thoroughness many of those layers as they exist in a colourful assortment of characters. But Tom Rachman’s debut novel The Imperfec-tionists (Dial Press, 2010) does. Since it would probably be too overwhelming for us to consider, we don’t too often reflect on those hidden depths. Regardless of how hard-hitting, aloof, or kind-hearted these people may seem, no doubt there are many layers that lay beneath the surface of their lives – layers we likely never get to see.
Every single person we pass each day has a story, a history, one that’s rich with broken hearts, broken dreams, personal triumphs and secrets.
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