Perfect Tunes

Written by Emily Gould

Narrated by Candace Thaxton

“An intoxicating blend of music, love, and family from one of the essential writers of the internet generation” (Stephanie Danler).

Have you ever wondered what your mother was like before she became your mother, and what she gave up in order to have you?

It’s the early days of the new millennium, and Laura has arrived in New York City’s East Village in the hopes of recording her first album. A songwriter with a one-of-a-kind talent, she’s just beginning to book gigs with her beautiful best friend when she falls hard for a troubled but magnetic musician whose star is on the rise. Their time together is stormy and short-lived—but will reverberate for the rest of Laura’s life.

Fifteen years later, Laura’s teenage daughter, Marie, is asking questions about her father, questions that Laura does not want to answer. Laura has built a stable life in Brooklyn that bears little resemblance to the one she envisioned when she left Ohio all those years ago, and she’s taken pains to close the door on what was and what might have been. But neither her best friend, now a famous musician who relies on Laura’s songwriting skills, nor her depressed and searching daughter will let her give up on her dreams.

“A zippy and profound story of love, loss, heredity, and par­enthood (Emma Straub), Perfect Tunes explores the fault lines in our most important relationships, and asks whether dreams deferred can ever be reclaimed. It is a delightful and poignant tale of music and motherhood, ambition and com­promise—of life, in all its dissonance and harmony.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Apr 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781797106113

Emily Gould

Emily Gould is the author of the novels Perfect Tunes, Friendship, and the essay collection And the Heart Says Whatever. With Ruth Curry, she runs Emily Books, which publishes books by women as an imprint of Coffee House Press. She has written for The New York Times, New York, The New Yorker, Bookforum, and many other publications. She lives in New York City with her family.

Reviews for Perfect Tunes

[Victoria Edelsbrunner · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A good story with engaging characters that kept me really listening but perhaps a little too realistic for my taste. Full of disappointment, regret and unfinished endings.

[allisonewoldt · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fresh, creative take on the sacrifices many of us make on the adventure called motherhood--and a lesson in the possibility of reclaiming what you've given up when the time is right.

[Alexandra Lupu · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Quick and entertaining read, with some sharp characterization. Nothing too hefty, but a pleasant distraction.

[c Kops · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What a pleasant surprise! I really liked this novel a lot!!!! Friendship, motherhood, missed opportunities and second chances...seems cliche but was still fresh and exciting.

[memechel · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Good story just a little dark. I love the context and narrative.

[Marianna Exter-Harris · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An exhilarating story following a woman through passion, insecurity, and struggle.

[froxgirl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In fiction as in life, the youthful beginnings portrayed in the first three chapters of this amazing novel is the best part - fresh, honest, rife with deep emotion and silly mistakes. Laura is a singer-songwriter who moves to NYC before 9/11 and is fully engaged with her E. Village neighborhood and her boyfriend Dylan, an unstable punk rocker. She and her best friend Callie join his band, The Clips, but all the optimism and ambition is bludgeoned by his tragic accidental death. So ends the dream. A year later, Laura is a struggling poor single mom, her daughter Marie the only remnant of her obsession with Dylan, as Callie has moved on to great success with what should have been Laura's band. The story continues with Laura's marriage to sympathetic single dad Matt, but she and the reader become truly disenchanted as Laura's talent remains subsumed to everyday life and to Marie's depression and teenage rebellion. There's a glimmer of hope at the end, but the glory of her Laura's early rise and her relentlessly bland afterlife shows the toll of the path not taken. Beautifully written and moving.Quotes: "Callie asked where she'd heard the song and didn't believe Laura when she said she'd written it, because it was the kind of song that sounded like it has always existed.""She awoke with a disgusting hangover that made her head feel like a black banana.""There had been something animal and beyond logic about how she'd known, the first time they made eye contact, that she needed to fuck him. She would have run miles, committed crimes. The best pop songs were about that feeling, and the very best of them contained a word or a phrase or a tune that made people who heard them feel it, too, in a homeopathic-level distillation that wouldn't destroy their lives in the way that experiencing that feeling for real would."

[narshkite · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Eh. I don't really understand why this book exists, why is this a story I should want to read? It is competently written (perhaps better than competent), in a heavily workshopped way but I can't think who would care about the story told. The whole is so navel gazey and mundane. It is so Brooklyn! Now, I love Brooklyn, heart and soul. I spent much of my 20's living there, first in Boerum Hill (when it was still dangerous - before it was home to so many literary stars) feet away from the entrance to the Gowanus projects (RIP) and then in the upper reaches of Park Slope. I still spend a lot of time there. I am a card carrying member of the Brooklyn Museum and BAM, and I love a good Emily burger. But. Brooklyn has an obsession with "authenticity" that is absurd. Word to the wise, if you think about whether you are being authentic, you are not being authentic. Also, authenticity often sucks. Trump is his authentic self every day, and I would be thrilled if he pretended to be a decent human being with a dash of intellect and a soupcon of public policy expertise. Some of the worst Indian food I have ever had was on the street in Kolkata. Authentic yes, and featuring the meat of (well seasoned) scrawny, tough, fly covered chickens. Anyway, my point is there is an earnest authenticity here that I would like to trade in for some style, some flavor, some generosity, some point.. All of the characters are authentic, and all are just boring. Everything that happens to them is authentic, and still boring. So if the goal was to write an authentic story, well done. If the point was to write a compelling worthwhile story, this did not work.

[hccpsk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Perfect Tunes is a book about choices told in three parts--each one a snapshot of Laura’s life at a pivotal period right before she must decide which way she will go. We first meet wannabe musician, Laura, at 22, fresh to New York City from a sheltered, mid-west life; then a few years later as a harried single mother; and lastly at a breaking point with her teenage daughter. Author Emily Gould captures specific circumstances and places incredibly well: grimey, twenty-something apartments, and parties, the stress of early motherhood, the bleakness of depression. Readers who connect with these moments--namely mothers and musicians--will enjoy Perfect Tunes and its story of losing oneself...or finding oneself in motherhood. Definitely a crossover for mature YA readers, too.