Perfect

Byron Hemmings wakes to a morning that looks like any other: his school uniform draped over his wooden desk chair, his sister arguing over the breakfast cereal, the click of his mother’s heels as she crosses the kitchen. But when the three of them leave home, driving into a dense summer fog, the morning takes an unmistakable turn. In one terrible moment, something happens, something completely unexpected and at odds with life as Byron understands it. While his mother seems not to have noticed, for eleven-year-old Byron nothing can ever be the same.

What happened and who is to blame? Over the days and weeks that follow, Byron’s perfect world is shattered. Unable to trust his parents, he confides in his best friend, James, and together they concoct a plan. . . .

As she did in her debut, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce has imagined bewitching characters who find their ordinary lives unexpectedly thrown into chaos, who learn that there are times when children must become parents to their parents, and who discover that in confronting the hard truths about their pasts, they will forge unexpected relationships that have profound and surprising impacts. Brimming with love, forgiveness, and redemption, Perfect will cement Rachel Joyce’s reputation as one of fiction’s brightest talents.

Advance praise for Perfect

“Out of the smallest, most delicate building blocks, Rachel Joyce gradually builds a towering sense of menace. She understands people, in all their intricacy and vulnerability, in a way few writers do. Perfect is a poignant and powerful book, rich with empathy and charged with beautiful, atmospheric writing.”—Tana French, bestselling author of In the Woods and Broken Harbor

Praise from the U.K.

“Readers who loved The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry will not be disappointed.”—The Sunday Times

“Joyce is no novice—she has done something more ambitious, darker and more honest [than The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry].”—The Guardian

“A compelling novel about the crushing restrictions that class and gender can impose, the burden of parental expectation, and the stigma attached to mental illness . . . an affecting tale.”—The Independent

“If only there were more novelists like Rachel Joyce. . . . Diana herself is faultless. She is to Perfect what Harold Fry was to Unlikely: a fully rounded hero, someone to fall in love with.”—The Telegraph

“You will end up grinning dippily and recommending this wild, searching book to everyone you know.”—The Times (London)

“[Perfect’s] unputdownable factor . . . lies in its exploration of so many multilayered emotions. There is the unbreakable bond between mother and son, the fear of not belonging, loneliness, grief, guilt, depression, loss, the destructive nature of mental illness and how love can offer redemption. Although Joyce made her name as a playwright and gives great dialogue, it is her descriptive powers that make the novel so vivid.”—London Evening Standard