It’s not unusual for a fiction writer to tie a number of
short stories together with a common thread and call the result a
novel. That’s the structure of the Imperfectionists, a
journalist’s rendering of the declining industry through 11
stories about the staffers and one reader of an unnamed
English-language newspaper in Rome. Interspersed with the chapters
about the present-day people are short narratives about the
five-decade history of the paper and the Ott family that owns it.
Author Tom Rachman has the experience to know what’s happening to
print journalism. He was a correspondent and editor for the International
Herald Tribune in Rome, which explains why he based the
fictional newspaper there, although Rome hardly figures in the
stories. The paper is in a nosedive, losing circulation and money,
and it doesn’t even have the one essential to survive in the early
21st century: a website. The characters, well-drawn but sad, are
portrayed with sympathy and wit, saving the book from being
depressing. Especially amusing is Oliver Ott, grandson of the
founder, who has no interest in the paper or in anything except
his dog.
The Imperfectionists received good reviews, but it’s hard
to imagine what audience it attracts, aside from former newspaper
journalists relieved that they got out.
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