Perfect

This is a story about time. How a few seconds can alter lives forever.

Byron Hemming is concerned after his friend James tells him that two seconds are going to be added to time. He becomes convinced that this is unnatural and is sure to result in some disastrous consequences. He is not wrong. After he inadvertently causes an accident, his life begins to unravel.

This accident will forever alter the lives of an array of characters; Byron and James, Diana and Seymour (Byron's mother and father), and a little girl and her mother (Jeanie and Beverley) from the wrong side of the tracks.

In alternating chapters we are introduced to a middle-aged man named Jim who is battling both severe mental illness and the demons from his past. You sense that somehow these two stories are connected, and I was so sure I had it figured out until Part 3 when I realised all my expectations and assumptions were incorrect (in a good way).

This was a very good story, and yet I found it so uncomfortable to read. It was like waiting for a horrific accident you know is going to happen, but you don't know when or how. And there is nothing anyone can do to change it. Beverley was so manipulative and the most unsympathetic character I have met in a long time, despite her unfortunate social situation. I was really hoping her scheming would lead to her own undoing.

And poor James and Byron, despite their good intentions, their interference just made matters worse for everyone.

The looming catastrophe was shocking, but not in the way I expected, almost as if the entire story was a red herring. Part three felt a bit anti-climatic, but I liked the way it slowed down towards the end.

SPOILER: I really liked the way the alternating chapters stopped once Byron felt whole again. It was a clever and subtle literary device.

Rachel Joyce is clearly a gifted writer. As the novel progresses you can see Diana and Byron slowly unravelling and looking back I had to ask: could Diana's inaction and fear regarding Beverley and her manipulation have lead to her undoing?

Perfect poses some very interesting social questions regarding gender roles, class and ultimately mental health.

I had high hopes for this book, as I loved the author's previous book, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. This book also starts with an unlikely event that sets the whole plot in motion. But that is where the similarity ends. Although Perfect is very well-written, I wasn't drawn into it or particularly motivated to keep reading. Some of the characters were undeveloped, some characters and events didn't really seem necessary to the plot, and I felt that some editing would have been in order. Overall, it was OK. There were parts I enjoyed but it was a bit of a letdown compared the Harold Fry.

After becoming a fan of Joyce's work through her first novel, I eagerly anticipated the chance to read her second. It was quickly clear that in this book, the author is telling a very different story. In Harold Fry, the reader is given a sense almost from the beginning that THIS story, no matter its twists and turns, will end up okay. Perfect starts with a very different tone - the reader knows right away that this is not going to be a happily-ever-after.

It is a book about brief moments - about tiny, seemingly insignificant events, which alter the course of the world for one young boy during one long summer. Joyce unfolds her story slowly, with chapters alternating between Byron, the young boy, and Jim, a troubled adult man who remembers that summer as well. These alternating viewpoints can at times make the narrative seem a bit stiff, but as the novel progresses it becomes clear why each is critical to the ultimate resolution.

“It is indeed a small thing, that Eileen prefers frost to snow, but it is in these, he realizes, these smallnesses, that make up the big things. Besides, the big things in life do not present themselves as such. They come in the quiet, ordinary moments - a phone call, a letter - they come when we are not looking, without clues, without warning, and that is why they floor us. And it can take a lifetime, a life of many years, to accept the incongruity of things; that a small moment can sit side by side with a big one, and become part of the same.” (p. 270)

Joyce tackles a myriad of big topics - class and society, guilt and innocence, mental illness, love and sacrifice - and weaves a tale that is intimate and personal. Readers can't help but feel sympathy for Byron, his mother, and Jim, as each character is forced to deal with events that are clearly more than they can handle. That the tragedy near the end, which almost feels inevitable, does not leave the novel with a sense of despair is a tribute to the author's skill.

This is an excellent book, and while some fans of Joyce's work may be expecting something different, I believe this novel is ultimately just as powerful as her first. This author has found a place on my “must-read” list. Recommended.

(I recieved a review copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.)