Binocular Vision

‘This book is a spectacular literary revelation… With Binocular Vision First Edition a new fictional planet, richly populated and suffused with warm lucidity, comes into view.’

Peter Kemp, Sunday Times

‘Gold medal class … seems beyond compare … The traditional literary system has worked, though grievously slowly, in giving a genius of the short story her due. ‘

Mark Lawson, Guardian

‘One of the great discoveries of the decade was the Jewish American Pearlman, who had been writing for four decades before this collection gave her the acclaim she thoroughly deserved’ — Sunday Times, Books of the Decade

, ‘Miraculously precise, and so fully populated that you marvel one mind could invent so many distinct human beings from scratch. ‘

Sam Leith, Financial Times

‘An unsung master.’

Megan Walsh, The Times

‘[These stories are] pearls that encapsulate resonant moments… Make up for lost time now and catch up with Pearlman.’

Ben Felsenburg, Metro

‘Pearlman writes about the predicaments odd, wry, funny and painful of being human . . . [Her] view of the world is large and compassionate, delivered through small, beautifully precise moments. Her characters inhabit terrain that all of us recognize, one defined by anxieties and longing, love and grief, loss and exultation. These quiet, elegant stories add something significant to the literary landscape.’ –

—The New York Times

‘There are echoes of Updike in the rhythms and observations of that sentence, but such are the multitudes of subject matter, place and structures in this collection that Pearlman finally seems beyond compare. The traditional literary system has worked, though grievously slowly, in giving a genius of the short story her due.’ –Mark Lawson, Guardian

Edith Pearlman, born in 1936, published her debut collection of stories in 1996, aged 60. She won The National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction for Binocular Vision First Edition. She has published over 250 works of short fiction in magazines, literary journals, anthologies and online publications. Her work has won three O. Henry Prizes, the Drue Heinz Prize for Literature, and a Mary McCarthy Prize, among others. In 2011, Pearlman was the recipient of the PEN/Malamud Award, which puts her in the ranks of luminaries like John Updike and Joyce Carol Oates.