How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question

Michael Schur is a TV writer and producer who specializes in ensemble comedies. After starting his career as a writer for the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, Schur joined the writing staff of the American adaptation of British workplace sitcom The Office, which went on to become highly successful. Alongside The Office showrunner Greg Daniels, Schur went on to create Parks and Recreation, a sitcom following the antics of government employees in rural Indiana, which was also a popular and critical success. Together with Dan Goor, Schur also created Brooklyn Nine-Nine, a sitcom following detectives who work for the New York City Police Department. In addition to their workplace settings and ensemble casts, Schur’s comedies generally feature an optimistic tone, long-lasting romantic couplings, and occasional light social commentary. Readers familiar with Schur’s TV work will find many of the same stylistic hallmarks in How to Be Perfect—particularly his witty and seemingly irrepressible sense of humor.

Thematically, it is Schur’s work as the creator of the 2016 sitcom The Good Place that is most relevant to How to Be Perfect; indeed, Schur is billed as “creator of The Good Place.” Set in an afterlife where people are rewarded and punished according to their mortal life choices, the show follows a cohort of recently deceased individuals as they come to terms with their new reality. Across the course of the show’s four seasons, Schur explores such themes as morality and accountability, progression and personal development, and the nature of eternity, many of which he also discusses in How to Be Perfect. Main characters of the sitcom include Eleanor Shellstrop, a woman who spent her life engaging in petty, self-centered behavior; Chidi Anagonye, a professor who subscribes to the Kantian school of moral philosophy; Tahani Al-Jamil, an insecure socialite; Jason Mendoza, a dancer from Florida; and Michael, a demon who poses as a friend to the others while using subtle psychological manipulations to make them miserable. Through the varied backgrounds and experiences of these and other characters, The Good Place questions what it means to be a good person in today’s world; a notable twist reveals that no one has qualified for “the good place” (meaning heaven) in a very long time, implying that it is more difficult, and complicated, to live a moral life than ever before.

How to Be Perfect bridges the gap between Schur’s life experience and his work on The Good Place, revealing what Schur learned about moral philosophy through working on the show while also tracing his personal moral development; Schur notably opens up about his mistakes and weaknesses. Though Schur makes occasional references to The Good Place, he does not dwell on it at length, nor is knowledge of the show or any of Schur’s work a necessary prerequisite to understanding How to Be Perfect. As a further sign of the link between the book and the show, however, the audiobook version of the text is narrated by Schur as well as several actors who appeared in the show.