binocular vision

also by edith pearlman

How to Fall
Love Among the Greats
Vaquita
binocular vision
New & selected stories

edith pearlman

lookout books
University of North Carolina Wilmington
©2011 by Edith Pearlman

All rights reserved. No material in this book may be copied or

reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means,
including information storage-and-retrieval systems, without the express
written consent of the publisher, except for brief quotations in critical
articles and reviews. Page 375 constitutes a continuation of this notice.

First printing, January 2011

Cover design by Claire Bateman and Emily Louise Smith

Cover photograph © Keith Brofsky / Getty
Book design by Claire Bateman and Rachel Jenkins
for The Publishing Laboratory

isbn: 978-0-9823382-9-2

library of congress cataloging-in-publication data

Pearlman, Edith, 1936–

Binocular Vision : New & Selected Stories / Edith Pearlman
p. cm.
isbn 978-0-9823382-9-2 (alk. paper)
I. Title.
PS3566.E2187B56 2011
813'.54—dc22
2010033376

Lookout Books gratefully acknowledges support

from the University of North Carolina Wilmington
and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Printed in Canada by Printcrafters Inc., an FSC Certified company.

lookout books
Department of Creative Writing
University of North Carolina Wilmington
601 S. College Road
Wilmington, NC 28403
www.lookout.org
for joseph
 contents
Introduction by Ann Patchett / xi

selected stories
Inbound / 3
Day of Awe / 13
Settlers / 25
The Noncombatant / 35
Vaquita / 44
Allog / 54
Chance / 69
ToyFolk / 83
Tess / 95
Fidelity / 106
If Love Were All / 112
Purim Night / 134
The Coat / 148
Mates / 158
How to Fall / 162
The Story / 174
Rules / 181
Home Schooling / 193
Hanging Fire / 205
Unravished Bride / 217
Binocular Vision / 223
 new stories
Granski / 231
The Little Wife / 243
Capers / 259
The Ministry of Restraint / 268
On Junius Bridge / 282
Relic and Type / 295
Lineage / 306
Girl in Blue with Brown Bag / 311
Jan Term / 323
Elder Jinks / 332
Vallies / 343
Aunt Telephone / 354
Self-Reliance / 367
introduction

To that great list of human mysteries which includes the

construction of the pyramids and the persistent use of Styrofoam
as a packing material let me add this one: why isn’t Edith Pearlman
famous? Of course by not having the level of recognition her work
so clearly deserves, she gives those of us who love her the smug
satisfaction of being in the know. Say the words Edith Pearlman to
certain enlightened readers and you are instantly acknowledged as
an insider, a person who understands and appreciates that which is
beautiful. Still, I think that Binocular Vision: New & Selected Stories
should be the book with which Edith Pearlman casts off her secret-
handshake status and takes up her rightful position as a national
treasure. Put her stories beside those of John Updike and Alice
Munro. That’s where they belong.
I first read Edith Pearlman when I was the guest editor for Best
American Short Stories, in 2006. Somehow two of my favorite sto-
ries in the more than one hundred I was given to choose from—
“On Junius Bridge” and “Self-Reliance”—were by the same writer,
a writer I’d never heard of. How was this possible? Katrina Keni-
son, who was then the series editor, told me that finding new Edith
Pearlman stories year after year was one of the greatest pleasures
of her job. After a ridiculous amount of consideration, I decided to
include “Self-Reliance” in the collection, only because taking two
stories by the same author simply isn’t done. From there I went
straight to her backlist: How to Fall, Love Among the Greats, and
Vaquita. My transcendent love for Edith Pearlman was sealed.
xi
  But even when love is sealed, it can still grow. When Best Ameri-
can Short Stories 2006 was published, there was a party for the book
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and for that party three actors were
hired to do readings of three of the stories from the collection. It
was going to be my job to do the introductions, except that two
days before the event, one of the actors fell through. I was told it
would be up to me to read “Self-Reliance.”
 While I am no stranger to giving public readings, there’s a big
difference between reading your own work and performing some-
one else’s work alongside two professional actors. And so I locked
myself in my hotel room and, sitting in the middle of the bed, I
practiced. It is not a long story and I easily read it aloud twenty
times before I was sure I had it. I am here to tell you: There are
very few things that hold up to being read twenty times aloud, and
very, very few things that improve with every pass, but the more I
subjected “Self-Reliance” to repetition, the more it bloomed. I felt
like a junior watchmaker taking apart a Vacheron Constantin. I
knew the story was good when I first read it, but when I had read
it twenty times I could see that it was flawless. Every word in every
sentence was indispensable, every observation subtle and complex.
The rhythm of the language carried the reader forward as much as
the plot. Every time I thought I had mastered all of the nuances, the
story offered up another part of itself to me, something quiet and
undemanding that had been standing back and waiting for me to
find it. This is not to say that the stories in this book need to be read
repeatedly in order to be fully comprehended. It’s to say that there
is such richness in them, such depth of spirit, that they are capable
of taking you as far as you are willing to go.
 It is without a trace of vanity that I tell you I brought the house
down that night. Edith Pearlman herself was in the audience,
which made me feel like I had the lead in Uncle Vanya on a night
that Chekhov was in attendance. My only challenge was to keep
from interrupting myself as I read. So often I wanted to stop and
say to the audience, “Did you hear that? Do you understand how
good this is?”
A year later, I was asked to give a reading at my public library
in Nashville for adult story hour (grown-ups who come together at
lunch to hear grown-up fiction) and I had the chance to read “Self-
Reliance” again. A repeat performance! The considerable crowd
xii ann patchett
went wild. They wanted to know how they had they never heard of
Edith Pearlman before. I told them I understood their confusion.
I had used less than half of my allotted hour and so I suggested a
discussion of the story.
 “No,” someone called out. “We want another Pearlman story.”
 “Read another story,” the audience cried.
 So I picked up one of her books (it was a library, after all) and
started to read aloud. And even though I wasn’t prepared, the
brilliance of the work carried me through. It turned out to be the
second­-best reading I have ever given.
  When I was asked to write this introduction, an invitation I
leapt at, I sat down to read the manuscript with a pen in my hand. I
thought it would be a good idea to underline some of the best sen-
tences so I could quote them along the way, but I could quickly see
the ridiculousness of that idea. I was underlining the entire book.
Okay, I thought, just put a check by your favorite stories so you can
be sure to mention them, but by the time I’d finished reading the
book, every one of them was checked. Every story.
  What you have in your hands now is a treasure, a book you
could take to a desert island knowing that every time you got to the
end you could simply turn to the front cover and start it all again.
It is not a collection of bus crashes, junkies, and despair. Despair is
much easier to write about than self-reliance. These stories are an
exercise in imagination and compassion, a trip around the world,
an example of what happens when talent meets discipline and a
stunning intelligence. This collection offers a look at an artist at
the height of her powers. Once you have read it, I hope you will go
forth and spread the news. Edith Pearlman has been a secret much
too long.

ann patchett
Author of Run and Bel Canto
Nashville, July 2010

introduction xiii