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Past Perfect: Book summary and reviews of Past Perfect by Susan Isaacs

Past Perfect

A Novel

by Susan Isaacs

Past Perfect by Susan Isaacs X
Past Perfect by Susan Isaacs
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  • Published Feb 2007
    352 pages
    Genre: Literary Fiction

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Book Summary

In Past Perfect, Susan Isaacs gives us one of her most glorious characters ever: bright, buoyant, and borderline luscious Katie Schottland. Katie seems to have the ideal life: a great husband, a precocious and winning ten-year-old son, and a dream job -- writer for the long-running TV series Spy Guys. But all is not as splendid as it should be because writing about the espionage business isn't nearly as satisfying as working in it.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

The operations stuff is well-done throughout. Katie's relationship with her sweet vet husband adds little, but TV show–based scenes are diverting, and her fixation on her last job is sharply funny and true-to-life." - PW.
"...if this isn't her best effort, it does offer a cast of reasonably engaging characters headed by Katie, a woman determined--once and for all--to make peace with her past." - Booklist.
"Filled with well-rounded characters and good humor, this novel, like Isaacs's previous works....could be a best seller." - Library Journal.
"A misstep for the usually entertaining author. " - Kirkus.

This information about Past Perfect was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Susan Isaacs Author Biography

Photo: Elizabeth Lippman

Susan Isaacs, novelist, essayist and screenwriter, was born in Brooklyn, educated at Queens College, and worked as a senior editor at Seventeen magazine. Her novels include Compromising Positions, Close Relations, Almost Paradise, Shining Through, Past Perfect, As Husbands Go, and Goldberg Variations.

A recipient of the Writers for Writers Award and the John Steinbeck Award, Isaacs serves as chairman of the board of Poets & Writers and is a past president of Mystery Writers of America. She is a member of The Creative Coalition, National Book Critics Circle, PEN, the International Association of Crime Writers, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and the Adams Round Table. She sits on the boards of the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association, the Queens College Foundation, ...

... Full Biography
Link to Susan Isaacs's Website

Name Pronunciation
Susan Isaacs: i-zacks

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