- Hardcover: 448 pages
- Publisher: William Heinemann Ltd (6 April 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0434011142
- ISBN-13: 978-0434011148
- Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 13.8 x 4.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,220,384 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Lionel Shriver, Financial Times, April 24, 2006
Like most good novels The Perfect Man succeeds because it’s so impeccably well written. Murr’s characterisations are often elegantly succinct
Laurence Wareing, The Glasgow Herald, 25 March 2006
Murr reveals a small-town legacy of brutality, passion and vulnerability that lingers in the mind like an obsession
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Perfect Book,
By
This review is from: The Perfect Man (Hardcover)
I've just finished this novel, Murr's third published work which was longlisted for The Booker this year, and am amazed that I have heard relatively little about this author. This is definitely one of my top twenty books of the year and to my mind as good as the best of the 2006 shortlist.
The story follows the life of Raj, a boy born in the early 1940s, who has an Indian mother and an English father. Raj is deposited by his emotionally useless father first with his paternal uncle's family in England, and later entrusted to the care of the girlfriend of another paternal uncle in a small town in the USA. Much of the novel is taken up with Raj's childhood and friendships, and this part is an engrossing and delightful account of growing up in that era, written with perception and sensitivity. It sweeps the reader up into the achingly real milestones of life and holds them transfixed through the gamut of passions, tragedies and achievements that define any childhood. Raj has to deal with the petty prejudices of some of the small minded residents around him, but the story never becomes bogged down by the issue of race, and Raj is as unchippy and charming a child as you could hope to read about. The evocation of small town life in the 1950s is saved from becoming cloyingly sweet by the undercurrents of sinister occurrences that are present in tandem with the easy community and unlocked doors in any parochial setting. A group of redneck residents swagger with macho bravado in the background. An unexplained murder years before Raj's arrival remains unsolved. Ostensibly chirpy nuclear families have their own troubles and secrets. As with life, the strong survive while some of the vulnerable crack. Murr is a versatile writer; he can bring characters to life with a few choice words and can also conjure up the paradoxical feelings that can coexist in people: his characters are complex and sometimes inexplicable, the echos of their past experiences partly explaining their idiosyncrasies, just as in real life. I give this book an unequivocal and would say that anyone who loved Black Swan Green by David Mitchell or The Little Friend by Donna Tartt will be blown away by The Perfect Man. __________________
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sometimes unsettling but well worth a read,
By
This review is from: The Perfect Man (Paperback)
For a moment I thought I would give this book four stars and not five, probably because despite its qualities, I felt a sense of unease at some of its contents. Then I realised it would hardly be fair. The quality of the prose in itself, the excellent portrayal of the many characters really deserved five stars even though I will never be able to say it is a book I loved, rather, I will say that it is an excellent book I read. To sum up very briefly an Anglo Indian 12-year-old finds himself in a small town in the USA in the 50's, left with his uncle's girlfriend when another uncle and aunt who had given him shelter but no love or support whatsoever decide they can't stand the sight of him anymore. Rajiv has to adapt to a small narrow-minded community (but not worse than what he left behind in England)and makes new friends whose lives he will deeply influence.
I loved the way in which the author made all his characters so alive and real , it might be a slight pity that so many of them are, to say the least, weird.There's Salvatore, a cowardly and foul-mouthed Italian shopkeeper, his bored and depressed Polish wife and their lovely daughter Annie,who has to bear more than her fair share of trouble,there's frightening reverend Hewitt ,his unloved and sour wife and their mentally disturbed son,there's Nora 's father as creepy as can be, pouncing on his mature-looking growing daughter whenever he has a chance to see her naked and many more variations. It is undeniably cleverly crafted and grips you until the end. It is also very cruel and sometimes unsettling.
15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic read,
This review is from: The Perfect Man (Hardcover)
This wasn't at all what I expected, but is a wonderful novel--great story and characters. In particular I loved Ruth. A lot of the most beautiful writing is in her perspective--as well as the strangest, in her shocking journals.
I bought the book because of the TLS review, and the review was right--it really is a whole world in this small town, and much more than the coming-of-age of those four children. I also think it's about how difficult it is particularly for men to be good and loyal. Great characters, an engrossing plot. This is the best novel I've read in a long, long while.
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