Perfection / Vincenzo Latronico

Millennial expat couple Anna and Tom live the dream in Berlin in a bright, affordable, plant-filled apartment. Their life as young digital creatives revolves around slow cooking, Danish furniture, sexual experimentation, and the city’s 24-hour party scene: an ideal existence shared online. But behind the images, dissatisfaction grows. Work becomes repetitive. Friends move back, have children, grow up. Frustrated that their progressive politics amount to little more than boycotting Uber or tipping in cash, they attempt activism, unsuccessfully. Feeling trapped in their picture-perfect life, they take radical steps in pursuit of authenticity and purpose, forever out of reach. Superbly translated by Sophie Hughes, Vincenzo Latronico’s Perfection is a taut, spare sociological novel-scathing and brilliantly affecting.