A Nearly Perfect Copy tells two very different yet tangentially connected stories about copies—one involving cloning, the other art forgeries. Reeling from the devastating loss of her young son, Elm falls down a rabbit hole of science-fiction proportions when she discovers a way to potentially clone her son, thus returning him to her. Meanwhile, struggling painter Gabriel Connois gets involved in a lucrative art forgery plot as he puts to use his skills at creating paintings in the style of his great-grandfather, the renowned painter Marcel Connois.
Both stories could be compelling, fully-imagined stories in their own right; but author Allison Amend mashes these two stories together in a very trite and arbitrary way. While both characters are well developed, the parallel worlds they inhabit are hard to jump back and forth between. And Elm’s professional life as an art expert in an auction house distracts from her cloning plotline as Amend tries to make her career relevant to Gabriel’s life.
In the end, A Nearly Perfect Copy suffers from trying too hard. Amend is desperately trying to engage the reader in a conversation about copying, whether in art or in our personal lives. And although she has some valid arguments to present, her convoluted novel is not the ideal setting for such a discussion—especially with such depressing storylines weighing down the central characters and the novel’s tone.
