A drink and two books. Edith Pearlman’s Binocular Vision and Euripides’ Four Plays
the blog of Ecotone magazine and Lookout Books
the blog of Ecotone magazine and Lookout Books
Edith Pearlman Interview with Deborah Kalb
Q: In her introduction to your most recent short story collection, Binocular Vision, Ann Patchett writes that Binocular Vision “should be the book with which Edith Pearlman casts off her secret-handshake status and takes up her rightful position as a national treasure.” And in the New York Times review of Binocular Vision, Roxana Robinson wrote, “Why in the world had I never heard of Edith Pearlman? And why, if you hadn’t, hadn’t you? It certainly isn’t the fault of her writing, which is intelligent, perceptive, funny and quite beautiful…” What do you think of this belated recognition?
A: I think the world is full of cabbages and kings, things happen early or late or not at all. It’s fun to be writing under the radar. It’s more fun to be recognized. But I’ll probably be forgotten sooner or later, and it will always be fun to write.
beauxland: The place by the water –
“Cornelia had had her eye on it for years. It reminded her of the cottage of a gnome. “Guhnome,” Aunt Shelley used to miscorrect. The other houses in the loose settlement by the pond were darkly weathered wood, but Cornelia’s was made of the local pale gray granite, sparkling here and there with…
– Edith Pearlman, “Self-Reliance,” Binocular Vision, 2011
Edith Pearlman accepting the 2012 Harold U. Ribalow Prize, given by Hadassah magazine in a ceremony yesterday afternoon at Hadassah House in Manhattan.
The award honors an outstanding book of Jewish fiction, and previous winners include Nathan Englander, Francine Prose, Louise Begley, and Jonathan Safran Foer.
Congrats Edith!
“Cornelia had had her eye on it for years. It reminded her of the cottage of a gnome. “Guhnome,” Aunt Shelley used to miscorrect. The other houses in the loose settlement by the pond were darkly weathered wood, but Cornelia’s was made of the local pale gray granite, sparkling here and there with tiny golden specks. It had green shutters. There was one room downstairs and one up, an outdoor toilet, a small generator. Aquatic vines climbed the stones. Frogs and newts inhabited the moist garden.
She spent more and more time there. At the bottom of the pond, turtles inched their way to wherever they were going. Minnows traveled together, the whole congregation turning this way and then that, an underwater flag flapping in an underwater wind. Birches, lightly clothed in leaves, leaned toward the pond.
…
“I worry about you in the middle of nowhere,” her daughter, Julie, said. But the glinting stones of the house, its whitewashed interior, summer’s greenness and winter’s pale blueness seen through its deep windows, the mysterious endless brown of the peaked space above her bed … and pond and trees and loons and chipmunks … not nowhere. Somewhere. Herewhere.”
– Edith Pearlman, “Self-Reliance,” Binocular Vision, 2011
We spy Binocular Vision by Edith Pearlman in the top row of “Must-Read Books 2012” from the Massachusetts Center for the Book!
– John Mortara, Lookout Intern
This past week was full to the brim with fantastic Lookout events and guests! John Rybicki flew in to Wilmington on Thursday, April 12, and visited Roland-Grise Middle School the next day as a guest teacher for a class of thirty-seven seventh graders. The class loved him and showed some pretty powerful poetry chops themselves! We got some great video of the lesson.
Continue ReadingSpeak With Lookout Books Author Edith Pearlman in an Online Discussion! Today from 3:00 to 4:00
From The Hinge: Thanks to Lookout Books, The Hinge is hosting an online discussion of Edith Pearlman’s “The Story” from her collection Binocular Vision. She will answer questions online April 17 from 3-4. Check out the story and join the discussion at the link below!
Pearlman’s Binocular Vision is a collection of new and selected stories published by North Carolina’s own Lookout Books. Binocular Vision was an incredible debut for Lookout: it won the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction and was named a finalist for the National Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and The Story Prize. Lookout’s executive director, Emily L. Smith, will be in attendance at the Regulator on April 17, so this is also an opportunity to find out more about a great new press whose mission is “to identify and champion overlooked gems by both debut and established authors.”
We hope you’ll stop by hingeliterary.org this week to participate in our first ever online story discussion. And to read more, stop by the Regulator to pick up a copy of Binocular Vision or to get a free bound copy of another Pearlman story, “ToyFolk,” and a reading guide printed by Lookout. See you soon!
Last night Edith read from Binocular Vision at Park Road Books as part of her North Carolina Tour. After reading she answered over twenty questions from the audience! Do you have any for her?
Can’t wait to see you all there!
-Sally J Johnson, Lookout Intern
This week we’ve been busy getting ready for Edith Pearlman and John Rybicki to land here in Wilmington, NC for their reading this Sunday and to kick off the Binocular Vision tour of NC. So many pictures to come!
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