The Imperfectionists

In The Imperfectionists, the story of an English-language newspaper in Rome, Tom Rachman utilizes a crystalline, lucid style that doesn't call attention to itself. He goes easy on the similes. He ends scenes early, sharply, rather than letting them peter out. For a young writer, he has a grown-up sensibility about men and women. He is funny. And the book's puzzle-box structure does not come off as a device but as an organic part of the narrative. Rachman joins Linn Ullmann on the list of young novelists whose next works I eagerly await.