Honeydew : stories

by Edith Pearlman

Other authorsEdith Pearlman

Hardcover, 2015

Status

Available

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Publication

New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2015.

Description

Presents a collection of short stories full of teenage drug use, anorexia, cruise-ship stowaways, and a widowed nail tech who finds herself falling for a client.

User reviews

LibraryThing member Beamis12

These stories are told in a vey economical use of prose and yet vividly descriptive. Many take place in Godolphin, Mass. And four stories contain Ronnie. Two, prominently feature her and her store forget-me knot, and were among my favorites. One story on female circumcision was very hard to read

and I have to admit to not understanding the end. What I most liked about these were they were about people living there lives, confronted with something strange or unexpected. How they react to these changes were sometimes unexpected. In one it took till the last line before I figured out why this story was being told. Than I had to smile, thinking aha, finally got it. Brilliant.

Short story readers will find much to admire in this collection.

ARC from publisher.These stories are told in a vey economical use of prose and yet vividly descriptive. Many take place in Godolphin, Mass. And four stories contain Ronnie. Two, prominently feature her and her store forget-me knot, and were among my favorites. One story on female circumcision was very hard to read and I have to admit to not understanding the end. What I most liked about these were they were about people living there lives, confronted with something strange or unexpected. How they react to these changes were sometimes unexpected. In one it took till the last line before I figured out why this story was being told. Than I had to smile, thinking aha, finally got it. Brilliant.

Short story readers will find much to admire in this collection.

ARC from publisher.

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LibraryThing member akblanchard

This collection generated a lot of buzz back when it was released in January 2015. As I write this review in September, 2015, I am surprised to see that I am the first to add it to my LT account and review it.

Edith Pearlman's characters live in fictional Goldophin, Massachusetts. The characters

are a cerebral lot. There is a man who brings a volume on the Late Roman Empire to his pedicure appointment ("Tenderfoot"), a security guard who reads Dawkins ("Castle 4"), and a father who trades lines from Ovid with his children ("Blessed Harry") in the original Latin. There are also a number of physicians looking for love, and at least two very skinny high school girls, one an expert on ants, who are aiming for Harvard ("Sonny", "Honeydew"). Despite their shared setting, the stories are unconnected, and they rely on character development rather than plot for their appeal.

Pearlman's short slices of life generally end without resolution. Some of them (most notably "Castle 4") could have been expanded into novels. I admired these stories, but I also felt distant from them. I didn't feel that they had anything to do with me, or with anyone I know.

This collection is worth reading for those who appreciate (and are used to) an erudite approach to the short story form.

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LibraryThing member bell7

This collection of twenty stories, many of which are set in Godolphin, Massachusetts, and thematically explore a variety of secrets and confessions, showcase author Edith Pearlman's talent with the form.

It's hard to summarize a short story collection without being simplistic, and I won't do it the

injustice of trying to say too much about it as a whole. The author's great strengths are her ability to portray sympathetic, realistic characters and conveying a complete story in a very short amount of space. I never once was left feeling like she should have said more. Sometimes characters reappear, and it's fun recognizing them in a different story. My two personal favorites were "Blessed Harry" and "Flowers," maybe because each had a touch of whimsy when many of the stories in the collection had a more serious tone. "Blessed Harry" tells the story of a family that seems cobbled together but is truly loving and functional, and their houseplant that somehow lives despite reflecting its family's quirks. "Flowers" is... well, hard to explain without giving it all away, because what I loved most was the ending. Highly recommended to short story lovers, though personally my preference is for Binocular Vision.

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LibraryThing member nivramkoorb

I am so very glad that Edith Pearlman at age 79 has achieved national recognition for her last 2 collections of short stories. If you like short stories and like Alice Munro then you should read Pearlman. Her prose is excellent. The stories are in the 15-20 page range and show an astonishing

creativity and uniqueness of subject matter. Much of her subject matter deals with mostly educated upper middle class people. The location is mainly New England and specifically a fictional town outside of Boston. Because they are short stories, they are worth a try. If you like the first one then I am sure you will like the rest. I previously read and reviewed "Binocular Vision and give it 5 stars which lately has been very rare for me. Give her a try.

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LibraryThing member asxz

Wonderful collection. Many of these stories take place in the same community and one or two characters recur from story to story. Ms. Pearlman has a terrific ear for the odd living among the normal and for the tragedy of the ordinary.

LibraryThing member ShannonRose4

I love how pearlman takes a slice of life in her short stories and shines a light on one small moment to reflect on the true "Predicaments of being human".

LibraryThing member suesbooks

Such a disappointment after really liking Binocular Vision. This book repulsed me, and I was pleased to stop reading it a little more than halfway through.

LibraryThing member JulieStielstra

Spare, precise, elegantly structured if not always appealing. When you're a little tired of "edgy," "innovative," "pushing the envelope," elaborately dark and/or laboriously aspiring to amusing or imaginative, Pearlman's meticulously observed tales of ordinary people are a palate-cleanser.

Pearlman's first collection of short stories was published when she was sixty, and it is refreshing to this older writer to see stories that reflect some actual life experience of growing up, of aging, of long marriages, even - maybe - wisdom. This collection is worth reading if only for four stories: Castle 4, Puck, Assisted Living, and (my favorite) Wait and See. Four winners, four stars. RIP, Ms Pearlman.

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