Article: Alice Adams, Mapping the `Perfect' Love Affair

Almost Perfect By Alice Adams. Knopf. $23.

Where does it come from, our endless quest for and need to be perfect? Life is filled with contingencies, with "almosts" that can easily mar even the most seemingly unblemished existence and turn perfection - or at least our fantasy of perfection - on its ear. It's the confusion and growing tragedy of those "almosts" that Alice Adams captures beautifully in her newest novel, Almost Perfect.

This is the story of a love affair between two nearly perfect people. He is Richard Fallon, self-absorbed, astonishingly handsome, a commercial artist in his mid-40s. In his bathroom mirror "he looks . . . well, perfect. Nowhere near middle-aged. This will ...

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