Honeydew
EDITH PEARLMAN

Honeydew by Edith Pearlman 121 reviews (2015) (288p) New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2015 Booklist Editor's Choice

Visit this book's Amazon.com page >>

Book Description

NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR: New York Times, Washington Post TOP TEN BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Wall Street Journal, NPR, Kirkus, Fresh Air (Maureen Corrigan), San Francisco Chronicle TOP TITLES FOR GIFT GIVING: Chicago Tribune Longlisted for the 2015 National Book Award -- and a nationwide bestseller. Over the past several decades, Edith Pearlman has staked her claim as one of the all-time great practitioners of the short story. Her incomparable vision, consummate skill, and bighearted spirit have earned her consistent comparisons to Anton Chekhov, John Updike, Alice Munro, Grace Paley, and Frank O'Connor. Her latest work, gathered in this stunning collection of twenty new stories, is an occasion for celebration. Pearlman writes with warmth about the predicaments of being human. The title story involves an affair, an illegitimate pregnancy, anorexia, and adolescent drug use, but the true excitement comes from the evocation of the interior lives of young Emily Knapp, who wishes she were a bug, and her inner circle. "The Golden Swan" transports the reader to a cruise ship with lavish buffets-and a surprise stowaway-while the lead story, "Tenderfoot," follows a widowed pedicurist searching for love with a new customer anguishing over his own buried trauma. Whether the characters we encounter are a special child with pentachromatic vision, a group of displaced Somali women adjusting to life in suburban Boston, or a staid professor of Latin unsettled by a random invitation to lecture on the mystery of life and death, Pearlman knows each of them intimately and reveals them to us with unsurpassed generosity. In prose as knowing as it is poetic, Pearlman shines a light on small, devastatingly precise moments to reflect the beauty and grace found in everyday life. Both for its artistry and for the recognizable lives of the characters it renders so exquisitely and compassionately, Honeydew is a collection that will pull readers back time and again. These stories are a crowning achievement for a brilliant career and demonstrate once more that Pearlman is a master of the form whose vision is unfailingly wise and forgiving.

Other Award Winning Books by Edith Pearlman

Binocular Vision by Edith Pearlman 123 reviews (2011) (392p) (NBCCA) (NBA) (LATimes) Read Reviews | Visit this book's Amazon.com page

Edith Pearlman Award Stats

Major Prize* Nominations 2   Unique Books Nominated for a Major Prize* 1   Pulitzer Prize Wins 0   Pulitzer Prize Nominations 0   National Book Critics Circle Award Wins 1 Binocular Vision ·   National Book Critics Circle Award Nominations 1 Binocular Vision ·   National Book Award Wins 0   National Book Award Nominations 1 Binocular Vision ·   Man Booker Prize Wins 0   Man Booker Prize Nominations 0   PEN/Faulkner Award Wins 0   PEN/Faulkner Award Nominations 0

*Major Prize = Pulitzer Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award, National Book Award, Man Booker Prize, and PEN/Faulkner Award

BACK