Honeydew

Book excerpt: 'Prepare to be dazzled. Edith Pearlman's latest, elating work confirms her place as one of the great modern short-story writers' Sunday Times 'A genius of the short story' Guardian 'A moreish treat from a master of the form' New Statesman 'This majestic new collection is cause for celebration' Scotsman 'A fortifying pleasure to read' Financial Times 'One of the most essential short-story visionaries of our time' New York Times Over the last few decades, Edith Pearlman has staked her claim as one of the great short-story writers. The stories in Honeydew are unmistakably by Pearlman; whole lives in ten pages. They are minutely observant of people, of their foibles and failings, but also of their moments of kindness and truth. Whether the characters are Somalian women who've suffered circumcision, a special child with pentachromatic vision or a staid professor of Latin unsettled by a random invitation to lecture on the mystery of life and death, Pearlman knows each of them intimately and reveals them with generosity.