I got the measure of Pearlman as a writer in the opening of this story.
“Thorns and palm oil and two full back matriarchs, each with the heels of her hands on the young girl’s shoulders as if kneading recalcitrant dough. Someone forces the knees apart.”
She’s describing female circumcision, genital mutilation. Pearlman has the eye of a journalist, looking for the angle. Go straight in. Get to the point. Yet, she can change gears in the story. We get to know Gabrielle, the ‘”concierge extraordinary” and a little of her backstory. Short, sharp sentences that give us Gabrielle in morsels but I feel I know her.
Pearlman reminds me of Elizabeth Taylor with her skilful dance between POVs, freighted sentences that convey the humanity and lack of humanity in each character.
“The hysterectomy was without complications. And now, flat as a book below her waist, dry as linen between her legs, she felt pity for the Africans’ dripping wounds…well curiosity, at any rate.”
Small, deft phrasing that expands our knowledge and experience of the story.
First published in Ecotone, Fall 2012, and collected in Honeydew, John Murray, 2015
A Personal Anthology 