Perfect Life: A Novel - Softcover

Shattuck, Jessica

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393304590 ISBN 13: 9780393304596

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2010

Synopsis

“Jessica Shattuck’s engrossing, deceptively ambitious novel explores a wide range of subjects . . . with a shrewd and sympathetic eye.”―Tom Perrotta

“In this smart and engaging follow-up to her well-received debut, The Hazards of Good Breeding, Shattuck focuses on three privileged Gen X college roommates who are now grown up, coupled up, and raising kids in pre-recession Boston. The cracks in their ‘perfect lives’ begin to show when the most precocious of the trio, a gorgeous striver named Jenny whose husband is infertile, makes the unconventional decision to have a baby with a sperm donation from Neil, her brainy, slacker ex-boyfriend from Harvard. . . . Stylish storytelling and sharp social commentary . . . make Perfect Life both topical and eminently readable.”―People

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Advance praise for Perfect Life "Perfect Life is a vivid, fascinating snapshot of the way some of us live now. Jessica Shattuck's engrossing, deceptively ambitious novel explores a wide range of subjects-from the logistics of adultery and the complexities of friendship to the nuts and bolts of video game design and pharmaceutical marketing-with a shrewd and sympathetic eye."-Tom Perrotta, author of The Abstinence Teacher "In graceful, lambent prose, Jessica Shattuck explores modern life, with all its moral ambiguity and complicated compromises, never judging, always illuminating. A beautiful book."-Janice Y. K. Lee, author of The Piano Teacher "Jessica Shattuck writes warmly and wryly of family, friendship, nature versus nurture, and the quest for the perfect life. This novel is smart, funny, and life-affirming in all its permutations."-Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of The Scenic Route

About the Author:

Jessica Shattuck is the New York Times bestselling author of The Women in the Castle, The Hazards of Good Breeding (a New York Times Notable Book and finalist for the PEN/Winship Award), and Perfect Life. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, The New Yorker, Glamour, Mother Jones, and Wired among others. A graduate of Harvard University, she received her MFA from Columbia University. Shattuck now lives with her husband and three children in Brookline, MA.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0393304590
• ISBN 13: 9780393304596
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 338