Perfect? – With a
question mark, is what Jeremy Johnson titled his novel because what seemed
perfect from the “outside” was in fact broken and dysfunctional from
within. In his fast-paced, soap opera
style novel, written in a third person narration, Jeremy Johnson
introduces us to the McDaniels; a socially upscale and wealthy Chicago
family. Seth, the husband, is an
executive with a major credit card company and a true workaholic. His beautiful wife, Jenna, is the “Cat’s
meow” to her friends; the stay-at-home housewife with her flashy Beamer and Prada shoes – all gilding her exterior façade. They have a lovely daughter, Terra, and soon
a new member of their family is born, Mikayla. The problem is Seth isn’t Mikayla’s biological father, nor did he know
of his wife’s pregnancy. The family
later finds out their new daughter is autistic, which places extraordinary
demands on their choices for the future.
This sets in motion the web of lies and deceit as Jenna
conjures up stories as she tries to hide the affair that had gotten her pregnant,
plus her addiction to pain pills, extramarital sex and alcoholism. Worse yet are her inner-most demons which she
kept at bay by self-medicating herself into a semi-toxic mental state of mind. She’s not only fooling her overly trusting
husband, but in a warped, self-denial way, she’s fooling herself.
Jeremy Johnson began his story with many classical character
development techniques we all have read and are familiar with. He stereotyped Jenna’s character by her
social status, her deceitful drug addition, even her dysfunctional ability not to
change and do the right thing knowing her behavior was wrong. Seth is made out to be a bit naïve, accepting
what Jenna tells him at face value; turning a blind eye because of his
desire not to disrupt the seemingly perfect family.
Then once the foundations of the characters are established,
Jeremy Johnson goes to work with his subtle twists of fate. For example, Seth, not previously suspecting
his wife was cheating on him and is pregnant from another man, says to Jenna,
“The doctor called and said you left your pre-natal vitamins on the counter at
his office this afternoon.” A great
line. Jenna began to confess to Seth and
told him about the one-night-stand that lead to her pregnancy, and said she will
have an abortion. Seth replied, “First
an adulterer, now a murderer?” Another
great line. It is this succession of credible
events, terse dialogue, and creative circumstances that brings the reader
deeply into this story, and created a page-turner that is difficult to put
down. Although gun shots are fired
within in the book, the bullets don’t compare to the powerfully potent
sentences being fired out like a literary machine gun during the final few pages
of the book culminating into a surprising climax.
Perfect? Is
perfect entertainment. It is a very good
book for taking on a trip, or reading on a plane, as Jeremy Johnson packs 7
years of the McDaniel’s lives into 184 pages full of twists and turns, suspense
and some very fast moving storytelling. With
his tricky foreshadowing of Jenna’s poor decision making, Seth’s weak
personality, some drug-dealing sleazy characters, a FBI agent, a lawyer and
some friends, you may think you know what’s going to happen. But I’ll bet you the “face in the shadows"
at the end will be as much a surprise to you as it was for me once reveled. After all, the book wouldn’t be perfect if
you could guess the ending, right?
