Perfect by Rachel Joyce – A Review.

One of favourite books of last year was THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY by Rachel Joyce(see an earlier blog). Whenever reading it, it was like coming home from a hard day at the office and relaxing into a comfy pair of slippers…..it made me feel all warm and cosy inside. I loved it and so thought I must get Joyce’s follow-up second novel simply entitled, ‘Perfect’.  This is a darker novel, a braver one perhaps, and one that is equally as enjoyable. This is a book that deals with the subjects of class, mental health, and friendship….and she deals with latter two superbly with great emotion.

So, we start off discovering the year is 1972 and eleven year old Byron Hemmings is greatly troubled to have been told by his best friend James Lowe, that two seconds are to be added to the clock in order to balance time with the movement of the earth. This troubles Byron because he thinks this will somehow disrupt his up to then,seemingly orderly way of life. Due to him then thinking the dial on his watch is going backwards in a car journey on the way to school, his insistence on showing the watch his Mum who is at the wheel driving, results in an accident which sets the rests of the book up. His Mum knocks over a young girl on a red bicycle, yet unlike Byron she did not see it happen. Byron joins forces with James and they become mini amateur detectives, they sense some truth is amiss with the girl they knocked over and with her parents, especially with the girl’s Mother, Beverley. They suspect Diana(Byron’s Mother) who is almost physical ‘perfection’ herself, is being taken advantage of. The theme of ‘class’ is clearly evident here. The Hemmings live in a rural detached Middle Class Manor, the children go to Private School, and Diana meets the others School Mothers for fancy social gatherings. This is in juxtaposition to the Working Class Council Estate where the accident happened and the Working Class family life of Jeanie(the girl who got knocked over). Beverley makes pointed remarks throughout about the then marked Class divide in English Society.

This story about Byron, James, and aftermath of the accident, is told in counter balance to a present day story about a guy called Jim. Jim we immediately find out has issues, and they are so heartrendingly told to us. He lacks confidence, has a stammer, and has an extreme form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I’ve read lots of novels in the last 24 months(got the reading book back then) but this is the first I’ve read where a central character has O.C.D, and I want to applaud Rachel Joyce for this. Jim’s endless rituals are superbly and painstakingly described to us. Joyce does not go over-the-top or  over sensationalise the detailing of this mental health condition. Rather, every time I read such behaviour conerning his O.C.D I was nearly reduced to tears.  Jim lives in a Caravan and works in a Supermarket cafe…he lives on the edge of society. Soon we find more about his life through harking back to the past, it is a past that eventually brings together the other story of Byron Hemmings and James Lowe that we are being told. There is this scene towards the end of the book which involves Jim meeting a ghost from his past. It is beautiful emotive storytelling and one where I all of a sudden noticed, prompted me to have a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye.

PERFECT is not the best book I’ve read, it’s not juicy like a crime thriller or leaves you reeling from plot twist after plot twist say like the majestic Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Nevertheless, it is a tale definitely worth reading, a tale that I felt all the better for reading after turning that final page. 4/5