Perfect: A Novel

The summer of 1972 irrevocably changes Byron Hemmings’s life, and he blames it all on an extra two seconds. The two seconds (added during a leap year to help time better correspond with the rotation of the Earth) seemed innocuous enough to Byron’s best friend James when mentioning them in idle conversation, but they terrify Byron. How can time be changed so easily? So when his watch stutters, Byron grabs his driving mother’s arm and causes her to hit a girl on a bicycle, an accident only he sees through the fog. Byron can’t contain the secret, and he and James concoct a plan that reveals a side of Byron’s mother he’s never seen. Byron soon learns how difficult it can be to be perfect.

Reading Perfect is an emotional experience. Joyce’s exquisitely developed characters felt like real people to me. I agonized with Byron as he watched his perfect mother disappear. I commiserated with his mother as she navigated the difficult path between her husband’s expectations for her, her responsibilities as a parent, and her own desires. My heart broke with each character’s disappointments and failures. Joyce is a wordsmith; be prepared to live in her Perfect world.