{"product_id":"pearl-isbn-9781400078073","title":"Pearl","description":"On Christmas night of 1998, Maria Meyers learns that her twenty-year-old daughter, Pearl, has chained herself outside the American embassy in Dublin, where she intends to starve herself to death. Although Maria was once a student radical and still proudly lives by her beliefs, gentle, book-loving Pearl has never been interested in politics–nor in the Catholicism her mother rejected years before. What, then, is driving her to martyr herself? Shaken by this mystery, Maria and her childhood friend (and Pearl’s surrogate father), Joseph Kasperman, both rush to Pearl’s side. As Mary Gordon tells the story of the bonds among them, she\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003etakes us deep into the labyrinths of maternal love, religious faith, and Ireland’s tragic history. \u003ci\u003ePearl\u003c\/i\u003e is a grand and emotionally daring novel of ideas, told with the tension of a thriller.“Enthralling. . . . A demanding and rewarding brainy-brawny novel that complicates our understanding of the world instead of coarsening it. ” \u003ci\u003e— The New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e “Superb. . . . Beautifully realized . . . . Both an exploration of mother-daughter dynamics and an exploration of faith. . . . It is Gordon. . . writing at her best.” \u003ci\u003e—The Seattle Times\u003c\/i\u003e “Compelling. .  . . Gordon tells a gripping story. . . .the issues couldn’t be more relevant.” \u003ci\u003e— The Christian Science Monitor\u003c\/i\u003e   “Gordon raises important (and timeless) questions:  is there anything truly worth dying for ?  And is it always desirable to live?  . . . [She is] a fiercely poetic writer.”  —\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e.Mary Gordon’s novels include \u003ci\u003ePearl,\u003c\/i\u003e S\u003ci\u003epending, The Company of Women, The Rest of Life, \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e The Other Side\u003c\/i\u003e. She is also the author of the memoir \u003ci\u003eThe Shadow Man\u003c\/i\u003e, among other works of non-fiction. She has received a Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the 1997 O. Henry Award for best story. She teaches at Barnard College and lives in New York City.We may as well begin with the ride home.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is Christmas night, 1998. The ending of a day that was not unseasonable, except in its failure to fulfill the sentimental wish for spur-of-the moment snow. The sky: gray; the air: cold, with a high of 33 degrees Fahrenheit. Palpable winter but not winter at its worst. Fewer of the poor than usual died on that day of causes traceable to the weather. Perhaps the relatively unimpressive showing  of weather-related deaths was due to the relative clemency of the air, the relative windlessness, the relative benevolence that could  be counted on by the poor to last, perhaps, eight days, December twenty-fourth through the first of January.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTen o'clock Christmas night. Four friends drive south on the way home  after a day of celebration. They have had Christmas dinner at the  house of other friends, a weekend and vacation house in the mountains  north of New York. One couple sits in the front of a brown Honda Accord, the other in the back. They are all in their fifties. All of  their children are on other continents: one in Brazil, working on an irrigation project; one in Japan, teaching English; one in Ireland  studying the Irish language at Trinity College. They were determined not to have a melancholy Christmas, and for the most part they have not.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey leave Maria Meyers off first since she lives in the most northerly part of the city or, as they would say, the farthest uptown.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe opens the door of her apartment on the sixth or top floor of a building on the corner of La Salle Street and Claremont Avenue, a  block west of Broadway, a block south of 125th Street, on the margins of Harlem, at the tip end of the force field of Columbia University.  Before she takes off her brown boots lined with tan fur, her green  down coat, her rose-colored scarf, her wool beret, also rose, she  sees the red light of her answering machine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHer heart lifts. She reads the red light as a message from her daughter, who has not, after all, forgotten to call on Christmas. She  probably thought her mother would be home all day; Christmas has never been spent anywhere but at home.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the darkness, seeing with clarity one thing only, the blinking red  light that means her daughter's voice, Maria knows that when she  flips the light switch she will be illumining a place nothing like the house she grew up in. Purposely, deliberately unlike. Walls  painted orange-yellow. Woven fabrics from Guatemala, carved wooden  angels--green and pink--from Poland, and from Cambodia a tin demon,  her protector.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe drapes her coat, her hat, her scarf over the chair covered with a slipcover the color of a green apple. She sits on the footrest in  front of it, on woven triangles of magenta, cobalt, rust. She takes  off her boots, which made her feet so uncomfortably overheated in the  car. She is greedy for the sound of her daughter's voice, her greed a tooth that bites down hard. Her stocking feet are slippery on the  pine floor. She'd been more hurt than she wanted to admit that Pearl  hadn't returned her call, hadn't made contact before she left for the countryside. But that was what she wanted, wasn't it? A daughter who  did not feel obligated, who felt free to pursue her life, her  interests, her pleasures, her adventures. She'd imagined Pearl sitting in a basement kitchen around a table of students toasting one  another with cheap red wine, filling plate after plate with spaghetti they had made together. Or maybe it wasn't spaghetti; she didn't know what cheap meal Irish students chose to celebrate their liberation  from the domestic cliche of family Christmas. Pearl had said she  would be with friends. No one's family? Maria had said. \"I don't know  anyone's family here,\" Pearl had said, and Maria had thought, Well,  that is being young.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut it is not her daughter's voice she hears on the answering  machine. It is a strange voice, a woman's voice, a voice with a  southern accent.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"This is the State Department in Washington. We're looking for Maria  Meyers, the mother of Pearl Meyers. This is an emergency. You can call toll-free.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eE-M-E-R-G-E-N-C-Y\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe word makes Maria believe she has lived her life all wrong. The familiar walls, the furniture of the apartment are threatening to  her, offer her no comfort.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eState Department. The official world. Run by men like her father. And where is her father now? She wants her father, dead twenty-four years, dying thousands of miles away from her, estranged. She says the word: Father. Then tries to unsay it. She tells herself to be  calm. She breathes in and out, the breathing technique she learned  for giving birth. She focuses her dislike on the voice on the  machine--what kind of voice is that for the State Department?--and  the name of the person she is supposed to call: Lynne Craig. Lynne Craig?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe tells herself she has never liked anyone named Lynne. What kind  of name is that for a diplomat? If you were expecting a serious future for your daughter, would you name her Lynne?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHer daughter's name has always been something she was proud of. She always relished people's surprise when they heard it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat's the baby's name?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePearl.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA disappointed look. Wanting to say, That's no name for a baby,  people would say, \"Unusual.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It's my mother's name,\" Maria would say.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen people would say, \"Oh, yes, of course.\" Forgiving her for something.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA toll-free number. As if paying the toll would prevent someone's making a call to the State Department when they'd been told it was an  emergency. She tries to imagine a person for whom a toll-free number  would, in such circumstances, make a difference. She cannot. She  loses confidence in the ability of someone who would invent such a  procedure to save her child. This frightens her: she cannot trust the people who are said to be in charge. And, unusually for her, Maria  does not know what to do.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe dials the number. The tone beeps. She tries to imagine the State  Department. She sees official buildings but they could be anywhere,  in any city, at any time since the mid-nineteenth century. She sees  her young self and her friends demonstrating in front of such  buildings in the 1960s. In those dark years, the people in the  buildings had been the enemy. Now they are her only hope. Therefore  they are dear to her. Therefore she hates them. They know something,  possibly unbearable, that she does not know. Something about her  daughter. Something she needs to know.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe gets, on the fifth ring, Lynne Craig.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Mrs. Meyers--\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It's Ms. I'm not married.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is the kind of woman Maria is. She has heard the word emergency, and yet she insists on not being misnamed. She is not married; she  wants to make that clear. No husband for a second opinion. She is a  person who believes it is one of her strengths: making things clear.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Yes, well, Ms. Meyers, ma'am, we have a bit of a situation over  there in Dublin. A little bit of an unusual situation that your  daughter's gotten herself involved in.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Is she all right?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Well, we hope she will be.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"What exactly do you mean by that?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Well, as I said, your daughter's gotten herself into a little bit of  an unusual situation. She's chained herself to the flagpole in front of the American embassy in Dublin. She says she hasn't eaten in six  weeks, and she's refusing food and drink.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Why is she doing it?\" Maria knows she must try to understand. If  there is a logical progression, it will be comprehensible. Therefore, some action can be begun.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Well, at first, Ms. Meyers, because it's Dublin and because of the  particular situation over there with the Irish politics and all, we  supposed she was involved with the IRA. You know, there's a group  that's very opposed to the peace treaty that's being worked out, very  vocal about their opposition, more than vocal in some cases. But this  doesn't seem to be the case with your daughter--IRA involvement, I  mean. She wrote a statement that she left on the ground by where  she's lying. It's a bit confusing, Ms. Meyers. We think she's doing what she's doing because some young boy died and she considers herself responsible. And then she's in favor of the peace treaty; she says her act is in witness to it. We can't make much sense of this,  and she won't talk. Now she's written a letter to you and another to  a Mr. Kasperman. It says personal and confidential, but if you were willing we could read it to you now.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"She's getting medical help?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Yes.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In that case, we must respect her wishes. If the letters are confidential, it means they're for our eyes only. Mr. Kasperman is an old friend of the family. Just take the proper medical steps and wait  for me to get there.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Yes, ma'am, whatever you say. Does she have any history of mental instability?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Of course not.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Well, Ms. Meyers, as this is a kind of unusual situation, we'd have to ask that kind of question. Any political involvement?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"As long as I've known her she's been only marginally aware of  politics. She's interested in language. She's studying linguistics.  She's in Ireland to study the Irish language.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Yes, ma'am. Well, you see, she has some connections there that are  of some concern. There's a young man, a kind of involvement, who has  interests, connections, with certain radical groups. But they all seem to disavow any connection with what your daughter's doing. They  say it's just the isolated act of a disturbed individual.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"My daughter is not disturbed. She's in danger, and I'd like to know what you're doing about it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Well, right at the moment, ma'am, we're trying to be in dialogue  with her. But she doesn't seem very receptive. I'll tell you the  truth, ma'am: she's very weak, and we're afraid of injuring her if she resists when we try to remove the chains by force. She's chained  her wrists, you see. So we're sort of hoping she'll remove the chains  herself.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Isn't it cold there?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Yes, ma'am, we have some concerns about that. They seem to be taking measures; I think some heaters have been set up. But our greatest  concern is that she won't drink. You know, they can survive this kind of thing without eating, but the drinking's crucial. We're worried  about dehydration. We've set up heaters around her so she's warm. She can't stop us doing that.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Then get the chains off without hurting her.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"That seems to be the problem right now. She's resisting us pretty strongly there. We're trying to avoid force. Of course, if she gets much weaker, she won't be able to resist.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMaria doesn't know what to hope for: that her daughter will weaken enough so she can't resist or that she will retain her strength. How  is it possible to wish that your child will weaken? Yet she knows  that is what she must do, if only she knew how to form the wish. She  has never had this experience before; she has always known exactly  what to wish for. She has often believed that her wishes would be  granted or that, if not, she would be able to live with their having  been refused. But now she does not know how she must live. Or how she  would live if anything should happen to her daughter. Her daughter who is in danger now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"We were hoping you might have some kind of leverage if you were on-site.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'll be on the next plane.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I've taken the liberty of booking you a seat; I'm afraid there's  only first class left on the six p.m. flight tomorrow. And I've taken the liberty of booking you a hotel, the Tara Arms. Any cab at the  airport will know it. Of course, you'll want to stop by the embassy first. Speak to Miss Caroline Wolf.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMaria wants to vomit, as if, opening her mouth, the horror of what she's heard might spill out as in a medieval allegory: a sinner  spewing out devils, sin.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut she can't waste time thinking of herself as a figure of allegory.  Her daughter is in danger. Her daughter is doing something she  doesn't understand. She can't even form a picture. Why can't they  remove the chains? Maria is an impatient woman, and not being able to  understand has always made her feel trapped, suffocated. She wants to  claw against this incomprehension. She wants to make Lynne Craig say  something that will allow her to understand. So, although she doesn't  want to hear her voice anymore, she asks another question. In case it will unlock something.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"First class?\" she says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'm afraid that's all that's available. The flight leaves JFK at six  p.m. tomorrow night.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTomorrow night. Six p.m. First class. Thousands of dollars. Nineteen hours.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe packs her bag.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMaria waits until midnight, when it is 6 a.m. in Rome, to call Joseph  Kasperman, her oldest friend. Joseph Kasperman, to whom Pearl  addressed the other letter.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd now I will tell you the story of Joseph and Maria. Your first thought might be that they are lovers. Having learned they are not,  you might imagine they are blood relations: perhaps brother and  sister. They are neither lovers nor blood relatives, they are  friends. More than friends. Neither has a memory of life without the  other. And what is a life without the memory of a life?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJoseph's mother was housekeeper to Maria and her father, Maria's  mother having died before Maria was two years old and Joseph's father  having abandoned him and his mother before Joseph reached his first  birthday. Two half-orphans, brought up together: a tie not of blood  or sex, a tie of friendship. Friendship from the start of memory.  Joseph cannot forget that he is the son of a servant. Maria almost  never thinks of it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMaria has a little Italian, enough to ask for Mr. Kasperman in the  hotel Santa Chiara, where she has stayed many times, first with her  father, then with her father and Joseph, then with Joseph and his  wife, Devorah, most recently with Joseph and Pearl. Now Joseph is  there alone. Devorah and her father are dead. She will not allow  herself to think that Pearl might be dying.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJoseph answers the phone, and she tells him what Lynne Craig said.  How she dislikes Lynne Craig, how she dislikes the State Department  and its toll-free number, how she dislikes having to depend on the  State Department for anything. Particularly anything important.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Why is she doing it?\" Joseph asks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It's something about a boy who died, whose death she feels  responsible for. And something about being a witness to the importance of the peace treaty.\"","brand":"Anchor","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304769278181,"sku":"NP9781400078073","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781400078073.jpg?v=1767734591","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/pearl-isbn-9781400078073","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}