Two years ago, Neil Banks walked into a bathroom in the Pacific Fertility Center to provide his former college girlfriend, Jenny Callahan, with the biological material needed to conceive a child. Becoming a father was not part of the deal: adrift in his postmodern Los Angeles lifestyle, he signed away all paternity rights. But on the day of the baby's christening, Neil turns up at the church. His unexpected--and unauthorized--return to Jenny's privileged East Coast world sends a shockwave through the families of Jenny and her two college roommates--and sets off this keenly observed novel about fertility, biology, love, and American excess. Elegantly written, Perfect Life asks the perennially daunting question: What is the perfect life? In her smart and timely new novel, Jessica Shattuck tells a story that is humorous and moving, enlightening and life-affirming.