A literary comer

For me, the ultimate compliment to a book is when I let it not only retain a spot on an increasingly crowded bookshelf, but resolve to read it in its entirety a second time. That is the case with Tom Rachman’s debut novel, The Imperfectionists, which wowed critics and readers alike when it came out in 2010. (That’s the author at left; photo by Alessandra Rizzo.)

In giving the novel a starred review, Publishers Weekly, nicely nutshelled the story:  “In his zinger of a debut, Rachman deftly applies his experience as foreign correspondent and editor to chart the goings-on at a scrappy English-language newspaper in Rome. Chapters read like exquisite short stories, turning out the intersecting lives of the men and women who produce the paper.”

You don’t have to have any newspaper background at all to really enjoy this book and its finely chiseled portraits. Our contributor Mary Curran Hackett, herself a novelist (Proof of Heaven), turned in an engaging How I Write interview with Rachman that I think you’ll find very interesting. This guy’s the real deal, with a bright literary future. Look for Mary’s article in our February issue, which comes out in early January.

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 I can’t close without eating some crow. Being, like much of Wisconsin, a Green Bay Packers freak, I managed to work a game prediction into last week’s blog that managed to be oh so wrong. The Pack, of course, whipped the Detroit Lions, maintaining an undefeated record. That’s what I get for straying from literary topics.

 -- Ron Kovach, senior editor, The Writer  

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