Perfect Life: A Novel

About this book

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. 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 babys christening Neil turns up at the church. His unexpectedand unauthorizedreturn to Jennys privileged East Coast world sends a shockwave through the families of Jenny and her two college roommatesand 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.