The Perfect Order of Things

Finished October 15
The Perfect Order of Things by David Gilmour
This novel takes a main character from a previous book and has him narrate his own life. Revisiting significant places from his past, he reminisces about the events that made those places special to him. He talks about his family, showing us the relationship with his parents and older brother. He talks about his school friends and the escapades they were involved in. He talks about his first love and how that relationship ended. We see his subsequent relationships, including his marriages and how he continued relationships with both his ex-wives. He talks about his children and the special moments he remembers with them. He is a man obsessed with both Tolstoy and the Beatles, and hooked on the illusion of fame.
His is not an extraordinary life, and he looks back at events both happy and sad. It reads like a real memoir, and because the character is a writer, it keeps feeling like Gilmour is pulling experiences from his own life.
I had to laugh at one line in particular:
     I was fourteen years old, and I was bewitched by a girl from, in my mother's dreadful parlance, "the
     wrong side of the tracks." Her name was Shauna. ("Only girls who have sex in automobiles are called
     Shauna," my mother said.)
Something else to live up to?
A good read.