Perfect Tunes

‘Perfect Tunes is an intoxicating blend of music, love and family . . . one of the great New York coming-of-age stories’ Stephanie Danler
‘A profound story of love, loss, heredity and parenthood . . . both funny and deep’ Emma Straub
‘Mind-blowing . . . brilliant and fearless’ Elif Batuman
'A moving investigation of love, loss and parenthood' Esquire

The perfect song. The biggest dream. The love of her life.

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 is asking questions about her father, questions Laura does not want to answer. Laura has built a stable life in Brooklyn that bears little resemblance to the one she envisioned all those years ago, and she’s taken pains to close the door on what was and what might have been. When her best friend – now a famous musician – comes to town, opportunity knocks for Laura for a second time. Has growing older changed who she is and what she most wants? After all the sacrifices and compromises she’s made along the way, how much is she still that girl from Ohio, with big talent and big dreams?

Funny, wise and tender-hearted, Perfect Tunes explores the fault lines in our most important relationships, and asks whether dreams deferred can ever be reclaimed.
 
Praise for Emily Gould
'Emily Gould is massively talented, just as good at devastating us with an emotional truth as she is at amusing us with a clever joke' Curtis Sittenfeld
‘Emily Gould recreates with wit and insight the New York I know: a place full of fame and money that's not yours, where friends become family and lovers become ex-lovers, and the big questions about your life stay unanswered, and unanswerable, for a long time’ Chad Harbach
'A sharp study of female friendship, that treacherous terrain where envy and deep fondness often go hand in hand' Observer
‘A wry, sharply observed coming-of-age story for the post-recession era’ People
‘A vivid exploration of the missed connections and overwhelming isolation of modern urban life . . . Compulsively readable’ Los Angeles Times
‘It points to Ms Gould's abilities as a keen-eyed noticer and her knack for nailing down her ravenous observations with energy and flair’ New York Times