The Imperfectionists (2010)

Fascinating news room and foreign culture stories. ( )

The history of a newspaper and its people. Good! ( )

The death of a newspaper is chronicled amid the lives of its staff. Each character gets his own chapter, short story fashion, and the structure of the book is one of its strengths. Events that occur in one chapter are retold from the point of view of another later on. In between are short interludes reporting on the business of the newspaper itself, its administration and financial health.

I was a little distressed at how mean or how many losers there were in the mix, especially the women, but then, perhaps the author does exercise equal opportunity in giving all of his characters some fatal flaw.

Still, you can't help but be enthralled by how well written the end of an era is in this book, not only the end of this particular newspaper, in Rome, but the end of journalism as we know it. ( )

Wow, what a great new Canadian writer. Hard to believe a guy so young can convincingly handle so many different characters of all ages and genders. If you have a newspaper-person in your family, it is hard to know whether to give them this book or not. It is so on target they will recognize their world and get a lot of laughs but in the end they will be terminally depressed about their future. It isn't quite a novel but is closer to one than the usual collection of linked short stories. The chapters all deal with the same people working on the same failing international daily in Rome and it has a beginning and an end--even a documentary-style roundup of what became of all the characters. But what makes it special is that it's completely convincing. You really feel immersed in this expat Roman world of second-rate journalism and you bleed for every unlovely character. You're sorry when it ends and eagerly search for more by the same author. Alas, there's only one unappealing book about Jewish jocks. ( )

Longlisted for 2010 Giller.
Meh. A quick read about the life of an international newspaper based in Rome, Italy, and the people connected to the paper. Short stories, basically. I only liked Arthur Gopal's, the second story.
Maybe if you like Seinfeld, you'll like it. But I don't and didn't. ( )