Description

By (author) Latronico, Vincenzo; Translated by Hughes Sophie

Short /annotation:

With the stylistic mastery of Georges Perec and nihilism of Michel Houellebecq, Perfection, superbly translated by Sophie Hughes, is a brilliantly scathing sociological novel about the emptiness of contemporary existence, beautifully written, impossibly bleak.

Millennial expat couple Anna and Tom are living the dream in Berlin, in a bright, affordable, plant-filled apartment. Their life as young digital creatives revolves around slow cooking, Danish furniture, sexual experimentation and the city’s twenty-four-hour party scene – an ideal existence shared by an entire generation and tantalizingly lived out on social media. But beyond the images, dissatisfaction and ennui burgeon. Work becomes repetitive. Friends move back home, have children, grow up. Frustrated that their progressive politics amount to little more in practice than boycotting Uber, tipping in cash, or never eating tuna, Anna and Tom make a fruitless attempt at political activism. Feeling increasingly trapped in their picture-perfect life, the couple takes ever more radical steps in the pursuit of an authenticity and a sense of purpose perennially beyond their grasp. Superbly translated by Sophie Hughes, Vincenzo Latronico’s Perfection is a taut, spare sociological novel about the emptiness of contemporary existence, scathing and brilliantly affecting.

Review quote:

‘The book artfully lays out detail upon detail of Anna and Tom’s quotidian existence in forensic, deadpan style…. But where is reality, Latronico asks in this sharp, deliciously pessimistic novel…. [A]lienation from the self is at the hollow, restless heart of Anna and Tom’s lives: constantly yearning, empty of meaning. Latronico’s thought-provoking book is anything but.’
— Thomas McMullan, Guardian

Review quote:

‘Perfection is a short, sly, scathing satire about dissatisfied millennials…. But [it] offers something more than amusing social stereotypes. It is a devastating critique of aspirational consumerism and personal branding, of a generation’s “identical struggle for a different life”, in a world where the principal means of expressing their agency is through food and fonts…. Latronico’s piercing irony is translated with great care and dexterity by Sophie Hughes, meaning it all feels painfully familiar…. Latronico has written one of the most brilliantly controlled works of social realism I’ve read in a while.’
— Johanna Thomas-Corr, Sunday Times

Review quote:

‘I read Perfection in a single hypnotized sitting. Time disappeared, as it does for Anna and Tom. In the following days, I described the book to myself with words like “flat” and “clinical” and “affectless”. I thought of it as a “case study” or a “kind of ethnography”. Reading it again a week later, I had the impression of meeting a beautiful, well-dressed person for the second time and realizing only then, with some embarrassment, that they were smart and funny and sensitive. Perfection is dense with ideas, feelings, political insights, beautiful turns of phrase, unexpected observations about ordinary occurrences – all the qualities I look for (and appreciate in real time) when reading fiction.’
— Alice Gregory, New Yorker

Review quote:

‘Perfection is a defining picture of a generation…. [A] curious and compelling read – like staring into a mirror for the first time, unsure whether to be struck by wonder or terror. Whichever it was, I couldn’t look away.’
— Chris Allnutt, Financial Times

Review quote:

‘Perfection captures with uncanny precision the sorry state of things in an era where abundance – of choices, of possessions, of personal freedoms – has brought