The Reasons I Won't Be Coming

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY SEP 19, 2005

Perlman's bestseller Seven Types of Ambiguity was published in December of last year; this set of nine stories, first published in Perlman's native Australia in 2000, works the peripheries of similar territory and reads like a very successful set of outtakes and trial runs. The coldly luminous opener, "Good Morning, Again," perfectly captures the rueful, moment-by-moment disappointment of waking up after an empty liaison that follows an intense relationship. In "Manslaughter," Perlman, who is a barrister, uses a jury's own observations of one another to mercilessly send up the deliberative process (or decided lack thereof). The chirpy, inarticulate legalese a probate lawyer uses to voice his despair at the loss of his daughter (and then his wife) is rendered dead-on, as is the corporate-speak a spurned lover resorts to in a letter-never-sent style monologue. A drawn-out story of a mad poet's minor redemption falls flat, as does a grotesque featuring a young, unloved student named Spitalnic, who literally has a hole in his heart. But "A Tale in Two Cities," the final novella charting the limits of Jewish emigr resilience, is Perlman in full: mystery, tight dialogue, layers of irony. At his best, Perlman makes false reasoning testify eloquently.