The Perfect Man: A Novel

published	2007 by Random House Trade Paperbacks
binding	Paperback
isbn	0812977017 (isbn13: 9780812977011)
pages	464
literary awards	2006 Booker Prize Longlist
description	Winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Europe and South Asia. Identity, friendship, and a long-hidden crime lie at the heart of Naeem ...more [close] Winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Europe and South Asia. Identity, friendship, and a long-hidden crime lie at the heart of Naeem Murr’s captivating novel about five friends growing up in a small 1950s Missouri river town. A contender for the Man Booker Prize, this exhilarating story beautifully evokes the extreme joys, as well as the dark and shameful desires, of childhood. Young Rajiv Travers hasn’t had much luck fitting in anywhere. Born to an Indian mother who was sold to his English father for £20, Raj is abandoned by his relatives into the reluctant care of Ruth, an American romance writer living in Pisgah, Missouri. While his skin color unsettles most of the townsfolk, who are used to seeing things in black and white, the quick-witted Raj soon finds his place among a group of children his own age. While the friends remain loyal to one another through the years, it becomes clear that their paths will veer in markedly different directions. But breaking free of the demands of their families and their community, as well as one another, comes at a devastating price: As the chilling secrets of Pisgah’s residents surface, the madness that erupts will cost Raj his closest friend even as it offers him the life he always dreamed of. Taking us into the intimate life of small-town America, The Perfect Man explores both the power of the secrets that shape us and the capacity of love in all its guises to heal even the most damaged of souls. [close]
date added	04-29-07 edit book

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Jess rated it:

05/28/07

Read in January, 2007

If the world of contemporary literature could be compared to, say, food, it would be a buffet line, full of soggy green beans and sour tapioca pudding. But Naeem Murr's "The Perfect Man" would be a gourmet meal: juicy, perfectly cooked sirloin steak with a piping-hot baked potato--oh, and cheesecake for dessert.

In other words, the flavor and texture of Murr's latest novel is, quite simply, exquisite. He crafts characters with a complexity and intensity that they become more than &q...more If the world of contemporary literature could be compared to, say, food, it would be a buffet line, full of soggy green beans and sour tapioca pudding. But Naeem Murr's "The Perfect Man" would be a gourmet meal: juicy, perfectly cooked sirloin steak with a piping-hot baked potato--oh, and cheesecake for dessert.

In other words, the flavor and texture of Murr's latest novel is, quite simply, exquisite. He crafts characters with a complexity and intensity that they become more than "lifelike." They become immortal. These are the Huck Finns and the Tom Joads and the Scout Finches who never die.

"The Perfect Man" is the story of the ultimate outsider. Rajiv, the illegitimate child of a British man and an Indian woman, is rejected by his family and sent to live with a stranger in Pisgah, Mo., in 1954. This is where the story comes alive, as Murr begins introducing the colorful, peculiar town folk.

Raj and his friends, Annie, Lew, Nora and Alvin, begin the novel as children, but we follow them through adolescence and into adulthood. It's not strictly a "coming-of-age" story, though, because, as Murr notes, every character essentially changes and develops during the course of a narrative.

Murr takes a sort of egalitarian approach to his characters, since almost every member of the community gets a spot in the limelight. Just for starters, there's Ruth Winters, Raj's guardian, also an outsider for never having married; Bennett, the town heavyweight, with a face like an Easter Island statue, and always with his "cronies"; and Frank, Annie's older brother, growing angrier and more brittle with each page.

It's quite a task for an author to command, not just one or two main characters, but an entire town, with each persona distinct and memorable. Murr accomplishes it with finesse, holding us spellbound and rapt.

And what's more, there are secrets bubbling beneath the surface of this small Midwestern town. There is tragedy and heartache and rage and madness. Pretty soon, it's bound to boil over.

Murr's prose is rich and intensely detailed without needing to drag on for paragraphs. He focuses on the small and intimate, letting dialogue and action create incredibly vivid scenes; though there's plenty of humor and tender moments, too, the fervor and discernment in Murr's writing add just the right amount of weight to the novel.

If other books have been feeling rather empty, Murr's "The Perfect Man" will be a delightful, satisfying escape from the mediocre....less

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Mark rated it:

10/28/07

bookshelves: fiction

Read in October, 2007

This is an excellent novel, full of interesting (if largely flawed) characters, a compelling trio of lifelong friends, the tragedies that can come from thwarted lives and fateful decisions, and an ode to how a displaced boy can find community, family, and one day, some solace and hope.

The "Perfect Man" is Rajiv, a boy born of an Indian mother and British father who is dumped by his ne'er-do-well dad on the doorstep of a woman who had been living with his brother in a tiny town in M...more This is an excellent novel, full of interesting (if largely flawed) characters, a compelling trio of lifelong friends, the tragedies that can come from thwarted lives and fateful decisions, and an ode to how a displaced boy can find community, family, and one day, some solace and hope.

The "Perfect Man" is Rajiv, a boy born of an Indian mother and British father who is dumped by his ne'er-do-well dad on the doorstep of a woman who had been living with his brother in a tiny town in Missouri. The dad shortly after disappears, and the woman, Ruth, who ekes out a living writing romance novels, becomes his surrogate mother.

Soon Rajiv meets Annie, the mesmerizing daughter of an Italian father and Polish mother who have settled in little Pisgah, MO, and Lew, an almost beautiful young boy who has just come out of a mental asylum after believing he had killed his autistic younger brother (it gives nothing away to say that in fact, he didn't).

The novel takes you through the growing bond between the three and introduces you to all the other strange characters in the town. This is the anti-Mayberry, full of embittered, failed and cowardly men and disappointed and thwarted women.

In this saga, then, the children -- even mentally ill Lew -- become the heroes and the most admirable people in town.

Murr skillfully intercuts his chronological plot with scattered flashbacks to the night when Lew's brother died, helping build some extra interest and tension with the device.

The one flaw here is that Murr is at his weakest when he is trying to be "literary." When he lets his characters and the plot speak for themselves, the story moves along well, with power and a florid imagination. But when he branches off into his writerly mode, it interrupts the narrative and often clashes with the integrity of the characters' thinking process.

These passages have the whiff of writers' workshop writing, and I hope Mr. Murr loses them in his next effort, because he has far and away enough talent to succeed without them.

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