Raoul de Noget, an over-the-hill singer, and his younger pal Buddy ("The World's Greatest Piano Player"), find themselves in a small town in the Midwest. They become friends with the son and daughter of the local sheriff, and the four hatch a plan to do something that, if they are caught, will be seen as a crime, but if they are not, will be art: they will rob the town bank, take the money over the border into Indiana, and then return it all the next day.<br /><br />With this story at its center, Robert Ashley's inimitable <em>Perfect Lives</em> goes on to demolish every narrative convention in the book, taking in conflicting perspectives, texts, tones, narrators, and philosophies, roping in Midwestern ennui, pop songs, self-help tapes, heist movies, the lost city of Atlantis, dirty jokes, the history of American immigration, the preternatural flatness of Illinois, boogie-woogie, Giordano Bruno, and, finally, an elegy for thought itself. <em>Perfect Lives</em> is as much a summation of America as <em>All in the Family</em> or <em>Paterson</em>, and is every bit as essential.