Binocular Vision by Edith Pearlman

Every time I think I’m done with contemporary American literary fiction, especially of the divorce in the suburbs type, I stumble upon work in that tired category that convinces me it can still be worth one’s precious reading time. Edith Pearlman is definitely an author whose work is worth one’s time.

I guess one reason I enjoyed her stories is that she’s willing to venture far outside the generic bounds which bind so many other writers. Several of the stories are set in a fictional Boston suburb, and yes there are divorces, but several venture far beyond it to Europe, for example, and Central America. The connected stories featuring a woman who works with “displaced people” (Jews escaping the Nazis) in London are among my favorites. Likewise, the view she gives us of a community slightly removed from the mainstream, the Jewish bourgeoisie in the US, is fresh. Mostly though it is her skill as a writer. Her characters are alive, and it is her exquisite prose which makes them so.

My only quibble with this collection is Ann Patchett’s introduction. One would assume that a professional writer and reader like Patchett would know enough not to just give us a gush about how great Pearlman is, but rather to say something interesting about the work. One would be wrong. 

But then I am, apparently, the only person who couldn’t make it much beyond the opening pages of her greatest hit, Bel Canto, so what do I know?