Perfect Reader
by
Maggie Pouncey
Order:
USA
Can
Pantheon, 2010 (2010)
Hardcover, e-Book
Read an Excerpt
Reviewed by Mary Ann Smyth
P
erfect Reader
is a debut novel for author Maggie Pouncey. Booklist calls it '
sparkling, shrewd
'. Kirkus says that '
Pouncey's first is impressively mature and entertaining.
' I agree with both evaluations.
Perfect Reader
is a whale of a gracious, insightful and thoroughly enjoyable book.
F
lora Dempsey gives up her magazine job in New York to return to her New England hometown of Darwin after her father's death. The father she thought she knew isn't the man she discovers after moving back into his house, now hers. Also hers are poems he wrote and left to her as his literary executor. She keeps discovering sides of him that do not relate to the father she thought she knew. Including the woman in his life, to whom the poems were written.
D
o we ever really know anyone completely? The mother you think you knew is not the mother your siblings grew up with. As the sister you were closest to is not the girl your brother knew. The older I become, the more I realize that I really don't know anyone, only get glimpses of them as they relate to me.
F
lora makes these same disconcerting discoveries and has a hard time dealing with them. She was intended to publish the poems written by her father, a beloved former college president and famous literary critic. Why can't she give these poems to the world? Life becomes harder and harder for Flora as she struggles with her past and with the indecisions that guide her future.
A
t times
Perfect Reader
is a hard novel in which to become engrossed. The reader (me) wants Flora to do the right thing. But what really is the right thing?
Perfect Reader
should be on your
must-read
list.
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