The Idea of Perfection: Picador Classic

· Picador Classic Book 59 · Pan Macmillan
5.0
2 reviews
Ebook
416
Pages

About this ebook

Grenville makes awkward atmospheres and fumbling encounters wonderfully vivid. Read it and cringe' The Times

The Idea of Perfection is a funny and touching romance between two people who've given up on love. Set in the eccentric little backwater of Karakarook, New South Wales, pop. 1374, it tells the story of Douglas Cheeseman, a gawky engineer with jug-handle ears, and Harley Savage, a woman altogether too big and too abrupt for comfort.

Harley is in Karakarook to foster 'Heritage', and Douglas is there to pull down the quaint old Bent Bridge. From day one, they're on a collison course. But out of this unpromising conjunction of opposites, something unexpected happens: sometimes even better than perfection.

'From these two reticent characters, besieged by two lifetimes of regret, doubt and dismay, Grenville manufactures an extraordinary comedy of manners, made all more powerful by her own reticence as a writer' Guardian

'Outrageously entertaining' Daily Mail

'Mined throughout with little pockets of danger and depth' Guardian

'A truly amazing writer' Rosie Boycott, chair of the Orange Prize jury

Ratings and reviews

5.0
2 reviews

About the author

Kate Grenville is a prize-winning fiction writer whose novels include Lilian's Story, Dark Places and the Orange Prize award winning novel The Idea of Perfection. She lives in Sydney with her husband, son and daughter.

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