The Perfect Order of Things - Review

Title: The Perfect Order of Things

Author: David Gilmour

Release Date: August 27, 2011

Format/Page Count: Hard Cover/224 Pages

Publisher: Thomas Allen & Son Ltd

Purchased: From the Publisher, through the Ontario Writers' Conference.

Available at Amazon: The Perfect Order of Things

Synopsis:  Like a tourist visiting his own life, David Gilmour’s narrator journeys in time to re-examine those critical moments that created him. He revisits the terrible hurt of a first love, the shock of a parent’s suicide, the trauma of a best friend’s bizarre dissembling, and the pain and humiliation of unrelenting jealousy, among other rites of passage.

In fact, here is the narrator of David Gilmour’s previous novels writing his own fictional autobiography in a dazzling cavalcade of stories that punctuate a life passionately lived and loved. Set within an episodic narrative arc, here are stories about the profound effect of Tolstoy, of the Beatles, of the cult of celebrity, of the delusion of drugs, and of the literary life on the winding road of the narrator’s progress.

This compelling and deeply interesting picaresque novel is a creative tour de force from the hand of one our master story-tellers. The Perfect Order of Things breaks new fictional ground and is an astonishing story of a life lived fully and with breathtaking passion. (From GOODREADS)

Expectation: I love David Gilmour...plain and simple. I 'get' his words. I have not yet found a Gilmour I didn't like love. My expectation for this title was extremely high. When you adore an author, there is always the fear that you will read one of their works and think, 'what were they thinking!?' So, I went into The Perfect Order of Things with a high expectation...I was excited to be entering Gilmour's head again, and slightly nervous that this would be the book I didn't 'get'.

Market/Genre: Adult/Literary

Review:

As much as this is a work of fiction, David Gilmour can be gleaned in every sentence. This beautiful story is a trail of breadcrumbs that brings us to the author himself.

Gilmour’s first person narrator walks the reader of The Perfect Order of Things through a complex, well-lived life of a man always on the brink of the brink. We are treated to the narrator’s great loves, including Tolstoy and the Beatles, and we learn how these loves altered and enriched his life. We listen in as he walks us through the calamity of errors that go into making up his wondrous life and we wonder at the fact that he is still with us to tell the story.

This is a remarkable look at a man split open and vulnerable. The reader will delight in the way the stories of the narrator’s life are told. He is able to see the humour in each of his falls and he is able to mock himself and give us a clear unbiased look into his most inner thoughts as he maps out the fractured route of destruction taken through his remarkable and ordinary life.

Be prepared for honesty! You will see a small, bitter man being a wallflower at parties of the rich and famous and you’ll be able to listen to his inner thoughts and get a glimpse into just how fragile he is when he points out the flaws of the flawless people around him. He’ll give you glimpses into his parenting skills, his lust for beautiful women, his lust for accolades and fanfare. He’ll show you his broken friendship with a man more on the brink than he himself. And he’ll show you a small pathetic man who tries to recapture the places of his youth with a failure so ripe you can smell it!

David Gilmour’s writing is simply beautiful. For me, nothing comes close to beating it. He may be his generation’s most gorgeous wordsmith. And I constantly feel that he is underrated. Even by myself. I don’t think about Gilmour between his books. When I hear that another book is on the shelves, I think to myself that I must pick it up. And then, maybe six or eight or ten months later I will get it. And then I will read it…and I will die a million deaths from the beauty I discover within its pages.

The Perfect Order of Things is a look into the seedy underbelly of the mindscape of a human being. It’s simply a vulnerable view of a vulnerable man…an honest retelling of a man’s life and a man’s mistakes. And a man’s passions. I would recommend The Perfect Order of Things to anybody.

Expectation: This book is one I closed and held close to my heart when I was finished. Some writers can show us the summation of a life with a beautiful flare that makes us believe in that life. Gilmour is one of those writers.

Size: 5 (1/2)