Perfection

A razor-sharp novel from one of Italy's most exciting authors, about a millennial couple's quest for authenticity in a life designed according to social media trends.

They have everything to make them happy. Expat couple Anna and Tom are living the dream in Berlin, in a bright, plant-filled apartment. Young, cool digital creatives, they enjoy slow cooking, Danish furniture, progressive politics, sexual experimentation, and the city's twenty-four-hour party scene.

It's exactly the life they had imagined for themselves. But they begin to feel disillusioned, bored. Work becomes repetitive. Friends move away, have children, grow up. An attempt at political activism proves fruitless, since their direct action amounts to taking an Uber only if it is snowing, tipping in cash, never eating tuna.

Trapped in a lifestyle optimised for digital perfection, yearning for authenticity, they find themselves doing something they could never have predicted.

Vincenzo Latronico's stylistic mastery, wit, and wry humour make Perfection a brilliant novel about contemporary life.

PRAISE FOR PERFECTION

'Sharp and revelatory. Latronico demonstrates that, despite their vanity, his characters Anna and Tom are not so different from others whose lives are conditioned by the consumer economy—they want what others want—a life that is legible to them yet not prescribed. Latronico is a brilliant and fearless writer. I recommend this novel to every reader I meet.' – Ellena Savage, author of Blueberries

Perfection is a jewel of a novel—precisely cut, intricately faceted, prismatically dazzling at its heart. Vincenzo Latronico is the finest of writers.' – Lauren Groff, author of The Vaster Wilds

'This book gives startling form to the question of how to live a meaningful life; to the illusion that appearance is beauty; to the restlessness of contemporary society. I read it in a breath and I was captivated.' – Ayşegül Savaş, author of The Anthropologists

Perfection is a generation-defining piece of literature, one that spares us nothing. To read it is to look in a mirror and finally, for the first time, truly see yourself and the culture you've helped create—the one that lurks behind the filters, algorithms, and curated ephemera of selfhood that make up our public lives. Read it and tremble.' – Madeleine Watts, author of Elegy, Southwest

'Perfection is dense with ideas, feelings, political insights, beautiful turns of phrase, unexpected observations about ordinary occurrences.' – New Yorker

'Latronico's conceit is clever and will delight anyone familiar with his source material, but his execution is ingenious.' – Alice Gregory, New Yorker