![]() Often, her stories revolve around a subtle dislocation, in which her characters can’t help but be surprised by the world. Like Eisenberg, Pearlman crafts densely wrought, at times elliptical, narratives that avoid easy epiphanies like Eisenberg also, she is comfortable with Europe or Latin America as a setting. Patchett compares Pearlman to John Updike and Alice Munro, but a more accurate analogue, I think, is Deborah Eisenberg. As I made my way through “Binocular Vision,” I kept stopping to read passages aloud to my wife, my friends, anyone who would listen. So often I wanted to stop and say to the audience, ‘Did you hear that? Do you understand how good this is?’” Patchett is not alone. ![]() “My only challenge,” acknowledges Ann Patchett in her charming introduction to “Binocular Vision,” describing the experience of reading one of Pearlman’s stories in public, “was to keep from interrupting myself as I read. ![]() ![]() At the same time, had I been familiar with Pearlman for all those years, I would have been deprived of the great joy of discovering her, the thrill of coming upon a writer with an eye, and a command of language, so acute. I’ll confess: I had never heard of Edith Pearlman before reading “Binocular Vision: New & Selected Stories,” a collection of 34 pieces of her short fiction going back more than three decades or so. ![]()
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