Review
Rome.
News. Two words which immediately reminded me of Joe Bradley, the fictional American journalist in William Wyler's
Roman Holiday, a 1953 romance in which Bradley (Gregory Peck) encounters Princess Ann (Audrey Hepburn), a young woman who has escaped from her aides for a respite from making public appearances. He accompanies her on a tour of the city to write an exclusive story, though she remains unaware of his motive throughout much of the film. I started reading
The Imperfectionists imagining that it might bear a similar banter and glamour. While it does contain cinematic moments, including occasions when a corrections editor cries out "Credibility!" during his rounds at the office - a hat-tip to a breezier, comedic style of dialog - as well as descriptions of the newspaper's formative years, which evoke a nostalgic version of Rome, Rachman's debut...
Beyond the Book
BookBrowse's Karen Rigby interviews Tom Rachman
BB: How has studying cinema informed your writing?
TR: At college, I majored in film studies, so movies certainly affected how I tell stories. One strength of cinema is its speed: a movie must grip you and tell a story fast; it ought to pull you completely into the onscreen world. Movies have limits, though, struggling to move beyond what can be seen and what can be heard. The written story allows you to venture more deeply inside characters - a novel explores those aspects of people that, in day-to-day life, we cannot easily see or hear. This is what I hoped to do in
The...
