Book description
'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 BentBridge.
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
