Perfect LifePerfect Life
Title rated 3.3 out of 5 stars, based on 13 ratings(13 ratings)
Book, 2009
Current format, Book, 2009, First edition, No Longer Available.Book, 2009
Current format, Book, 2009, First edition, No Longer Available. Offered in 0 more formatsTwo years ago, Neil Banks walked into a bathroom in the Pacific Fertility Center to provide his former college girlfriend, Jenny Callahan, with the biological material needed to conceive a child. Becoming a father was not part of the deal: adrift in his postmodern Los Angeles lifestyle, he signed away all paternity rights. But on the day of the baby’s christening, Neil turns up at the church. His unexpected—and unauthorized—return to Jenny’s privileged East Coast world sends a shockwave through the families of Jenny and her two college roommates—and sets off this keenly observed novel about fertility, biology, love, and American excess.
Elegantly written, Perfect Life asks the perennially daunting question: What is the perfect life? In her smart and timely new novel, Jessica Shattuck tells a story that is humorous and moving, enlightening and life-affirming.
Two years ago, Neil Banks walked into a bathroom in the Pacific Fertility Center to provide his former college girlfriend, Jenny Callahan, with the biological material needed to conceive a child. Becoming a father was not part of the deal: adrift in his postmodern Los Angeles lifestyle, he signed away all paternity rights. But on the day of the baby’s christening, Neil turns up at the church. His unexpected—and unauthorized—return to Jenny’s privileged East Coast world sends a shockwave through the families of Jenny and her two college roommates—and sets off this keenly observed novel about fertility, biology, love, and American excess.Elegantly written, Perfect Life asks the perennially daunting question: What is the perfect life? In her smart and timely new novel, Jessica Shattuck tells a story that is humorous and moving, enlightening and life-affirming.
Donating sperm to his ex-girlfriend Jenny in order to assist her efforts to become a mother, Neil Banks initially signs away all paternity rights and then shocks Jenny's privileged east coast community by showing up for the baby's christening. By the author of The Hazards of Good Breeding.
Donating sperm to his ex-girlfriend Jenny in order to assist her efforts to become a mother, Neil Banks initially signs away all paternity rights and subsequently shocks Jenny's privileged East coast community by showing up for the baby's christening.
In Perfect Life, Jessica Shattuck once again displays her “skewering gift for social commentary” (New York Times) in a uniquely modern chronicle of conception in the age of infinite possibility.
Perfect LifeNew York Times
Elegantly written, Perfect Life asks the perennially daunting question: What is the perfect life? In her smart and timely new novel, Jessica Shattuck tells a story that is humorous and moving, enlightening and life-affirming.
Two years ago, Neil Banks walked into a bathroom in the Pacific Fertility Center to provide his former college girlfriend, Jenny Callahan, with the biological material needed to conceive a child. Becoming a father was not part of the deal: adrift in his postmodern Los Angeles lifestyle, he signed away all paternity rights. But on the day of the baby’s christening, Neil turns up at the church. His unexpected—and unauthorized—return to Jenny’s privileged East Coast world sends a shockwave through the families of Jenny and her two college roommates—and sets off this keenly observed novel about fertility, biology, love, and American excess.Elegantly written, Perfect Life asks the perennially daunting question: What is the perfect life? In her smart and timely new novel, Jessica Shattuck tells a story that is humorous and moving, enlightening and life-affirming.
Donating sperm to his ex-girlfriend Jenny in order to assist her efforts to become a mother, Neil Banks initially signs away all paternity rights and then shocks Jenny's privileged east coast community by showing up for the baby's christening. By the author of The Hazards of Good Breeding.
Donating sperm to his ex-girlfriend Jenny in order to assist her efforts to become a mother, Neil Banks initially signs away all paternity rights and subsequently shocks Jenny's privileged East coast community by showing up for the baby's christening.
In Perfect Life, Jessica Shattuck once again displays her “skewering gift for social commentary” (New York Times) in a uniquely modern chronicle of conception in the age of infinite possibility.
Perfect LifeNew York Times
Title availability
About
Details
Publication
- New York : W.W. Norton & Co., [2009], ©2009
Opinion
More from the community
Community lists featuring this title
There are no community lists featuring this title
Community contributions
There are no quotations from this title
There are no quotations from this title
From the community