title: Perfect Life: A Novel
author:  Jessica Shattuck 
description: Shattuck's seamless second (after <i>The Hazards of Good Breeding</i>) explores how one woman's decision to shut the biological father of her child out of her life affects a group of old college pals. Harvard grad Neil Banks isn't exactly thrilled at having sold out and taken a job that moved him from L.A. to Boston to design the video games he used to review. After his arrival, he happens across Laura, a mutual friend of his and his college sweetheart, Jenny, who got pregnant using Neil's sperm after her blank-shooting husband couldn't deliver. As Laura, now unhappily married and the mother of two, and Neil embark on an affair, Neil's desire to connect with the son he's never met (and signed away all rights to) grows ever more intense. His chance comes in the form of a sexually voracious rep from Jenny's pharma company who is working on an antidepressant product-placement deal for a game Neil's designing. Shattuck does a great job with her characters, and the bizarre situations they find themselves inNeil particularlycome across as oddly believable. Light humor and breezy prose seal the deal. <i>(Aug.)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  THE
  
  
  PERFECT
  
  
  LIFE
  
  
  
  
  
  A totally compelling psychological thriller with an electrifying finish
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  SUSANNA BEARD
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  First published 2020
  
  
  Joffe Books, London
  
  
  [www.joffebooks.com](http://www.joffebooks.com)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  © Susanna Beard
  
  
  
  
  
  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations,
  places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are
  used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events
  or locales is entirely coincidental. The spelling used is British English
  except where fidelity to the author’s rendering of accent or dialect
  supersedes this. The right of Susanna Beard to be identified as author of this
  work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents
  Act 1988.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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