Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction 2001, The Idea of Perfection is a witty and tender romance about two people who have given up on love. Now including an introduction by Evie Wyld, author of All the Birds, Singing . Set in the eccentric backwater of Karakarook, Australia (population 1374), it tells the story of Douglas Cheeseman, a gawky engineer with jug-handle ears, and Harley Savage, a woman altogether too big and too abrupt for comfort. Harley is in Karakarook to foster "heritage," while Douglas is there to pull down the quaint old Bent Bridge. From day one, they're on a collision course. But out of this unpromising conjunction of opposites, something unexpected happens: sometimes even better than perfection.