Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    A Perfect Life: A Novel
    Unavailable
    A Perfect Life: A Novel
    Unavailable
    A Perfect Life: A Novel
    Ebook357 pages7 hours

    A Perfect Life: A Novel

    By Eileen Pollack

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    A luminous and insightful novel that considers the moral complexities of scientific discovery and the sustaining nature of love. A young researcher at MIT, Jane Weiss is obsessed with finding the genetic marker for Valentine’s Disease, a neurodegenerative disorder. Her pursuit is deeply personal—Valentine’s killed her mother, and she and her freewheeling sister, Laurel, could be genetic carriers; each has a fifty percent chance of developing the disease. Having seen firsthand the devastating effect Valentine’s had on her parents’ marriage, Jane is terrified she might become a burden on whomever she falls in love with and so steers clear of romantic entanglement. Then, the summer before her father’s second wedding, Jane falls hard for her future stepbrother, Willie. But Willie’s father also died from Valentine’s, raising the odds that their love will end in tragedy.

    When Willie bolts at a crucial moment in their relationship, Jane becomes obsessed with finding the genetic marker to the disease that threatens both their families. But if she succeeds in making history, will she and her sister have the courage to face the truth this newfound knowledge could hold for their lives? A Perfect Life is a novel of scientific and self discovery, about learning how to embrace life and love, no matter what may come. Eileen Pollack conjures a thought-provoking, emotionally resonant story of one woman’s brilliance and bravery as she confronts her deepest fears and desires—and comes to accept the inevitable and the unexpected.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMay 10, 2016
    ISBN9780062419200
    Unavailable
    A Perfect Life: A Novel
    Author

    Eileen Pollack

    Eileen Pollack grew up in Liberty, New York. She has received fellowships from the Michener Foundation and the MacDowell Colony, and her stories have appeared in Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, the Literary Review, the AGNI Review, Playgirl, and the New Generation. She lives in Belmont, Massachusetts, and teaches at Tufts University. She won the Pushcart Prize for her story “Past, Future, Elsewhere.”

    Read more from Eileen Pollack

    Related to A Perfect Life

    Related ebooks

    General Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      I Do So, Like Durian

      Jun 10, 2021

      The 504-streetcar grated against the curve of the tracks as it entered the station. It pulled to a stop directly in front of Holly. The doors opened with such a clunk that she stepped back, treading on the toes of the person behind her. She was block

      11 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Mar 4, 2024

      Security confiscated the bracelet I’d slipped into my wallet but not the thin black sweater I wore as I walked out of Macy’s. The sweater still had its price tag and was so soft it soothed whoever was whispering “more, more” in my ears adorned with s

      4 min read

    • Article

      Blood Rituals

      Dec 1, 2020

      Blood Rituals
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Things I Would Never Do

      Dec 23, 2021

      The Things I Would Never Do
      12 min read

    • Article

      The Final Truth

      Jan 21, 2020

      The Final Truth
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Pacifist's Plan to Survive the Violent World of Prison

      Nov 6, 2020

      Before I even open my eyes I am reminded of where I am, by the yelling and smell of sweat in the dormitory, the hardness of the metal bunk beneath my four-inch thick mattress, the fluorescent lights burning through my eyelids, my anxiety. When I do

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Inventions of Witches

      Oct 30, 2017

      The Inventions of Witches
      7 min read

    • Article

      THE greatest LOVE

      Oct 21, 2021

      THE greatest LOVE
      10 min read

    • Article

      Hospital Journal

      Dec 13, 2022

      Hospital Journal
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Worst and Best Day

      Apr 16, 2022

      The Worst and Best Day
      8 min read

    • Article

      Quantum Physics for Mothers

      Dec 15, 2020

      Quantum Physics for Mothers
      10 min read

    • Article

      Siphons

      Feb 6, 2020

      Siphons
      6 min read

    • Article

      Shells: Picking Apart Pain and Womanhood

      Jun 7, 2018

      The skin on the bottoms of my feet is so hard that I have felt a dull ache somewhere in my heel after running miles barefoot on the beach; not until I pull my foot up on my knee do I realize that a small, sharp shell has dug in and stuck inside the c

      11 min read

    • Article

      Singing In The Turnip Fields Of Hope

      Jan 13, 2021

      WHEN the miracle arrived, I didn’t fall to my knees in prayerful gratitude. In my bewildered and relieved state, I burst into song: ‘Vaccine! Vaccine! Vaccine! Vaccine! Please take away this plague!’ My lyrics didn’t stretch beyond two lines, but I b

      4 min read

    • Article

      Judges

      Mar 10, 2024

      The doctors assured me the shrapnel in my leg would do no further harm if they “let sleeping dogs lie,” or at least less harm than trying to take it out would cause. “Hey,” I asked them. “What if it decides to cut its way out all on its own?” My grea

      12 min read

    • Article

      Morbidity & the Miniature

      May 11, 2018

      Morbidity & the Miniature
      14 min read

    • Article

      Everyone Has 32 Teeth

      Sep 29, 2023

      Everyone Has 32 Teeth
      11 min read

    • Article

      A Monstrous Silence

      Dec 15, 2021

      BETH GILSTRAP is the author of Deadheading & Other Stories (2021), winner of the Red Hen Press Women’s Prose Prize. She is also the author of I Am Barbarella (Twelve Winters Press, 2015) and No Man’s Wild Laura (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2016). Born and r

      11 min read

    • Article

      GOING TO THE edge

      Sep 3, 2020

      GOING TO THE edge
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Code of Hammurabi

      Nov 5, 2019

      The Code of Hammurabi
      12 min read

    • Article

      Dark Tales

      Dec 2, 2021

      Dark Tales
      6 min read

    • Article

      Weaponry Of The Cold War

      Sep 1, 2020

      Weaponry Of The Cold War
      7 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems by Szilárd Borbély

      Jun 15, 2018

      The Eternalis like the axthe assassin slamsinto someone’s head. The Eternal is the actof pillage from whichin panic the garretnow is empty. The Eternal is scarlet,like fresh blood. Above itrises a vapor.Then it, too, disappears. The Eternal is liketh

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Year That Changed My Life

      Mar 10, 2019

      The Year That Changed My Life
      6 min read

    • Article

      All Words Fly

      Aug 21, 2018

      All Words Fly
      10 min read

    • Article

      When Life Bites

      Sep 14, 2020

      When Life Bites
      6 min read

    Reviews for A Perfect Life

    4/5

    6 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      The disease: Valentine's Chorea. The symptoms: violent uncontrollable shuddering, inappropriate sexual propositioning, inability to control all bodily functions. The concept: fiction, but non-medically based somewhat on Huntington's Chorea (Woody Guthrie's disease). Two sisters don't know if they are carriers of the gene, since it has not yet been identified. Jane becomes a scientist to find out more about the disease that killed her mother, and she succeeds. She falls in love with her stepbrother, whose father also died of Valentine's. The science is interesting, but what really makes this a successful story is Jane's discovery of a large group of Valentine's sufferers on an isolated Maine island. Also very well written are her lab mates and the ties that bind them all in the hunt for the culprit. The sexual symptoms of the disease seemed gratuitous - what could really make shaking to death any worse? This is a good novel that goes beyond medical mystery.