Pearl by Mary Gordon

From the Publisher

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 takes us deep into the labyrinths of maternal love, religious faith, and Ireland’s tragic history. Pearl is a grand and emotionally daring novel of ideas, told with the tension of a thriller.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

The New York Times - John Leonard

Like a hound of heaven, [Gordon] is too busy going down a rabbit hole or up in holy smoke to care whether we adore her or root for her characters. Like her ghostly grandmothers, Mary McCarthy and Flannery O'Connor, she can't be embarrassed by bodies or ideas. And like the 12th-century nun and mystic Hildegard of Bingen, when she isn't writing poems, composing antiphons, transcribing visions, suffering migraines and talking back to kings and popes, she is equally eager to discuss divine harmony or female orgasm.

The Washington Post - Donna Rifkind

Gordon keeps a lot of plates spinning here in a novel that is really just a long series of absorbing digressions. Somehow, though, Gordon is able to maintain her focus on Maria and Pearl, who for all their disappointment in each other are nevertheless lovingly bound together, and who are finally able to achieve a reconciliation that is, like every good ending, both surprising and unavoidable. Gordon's job here was to show the intimacy in Pearl's grand stunt and the grandness in the intimate mother-daughter reunion that follows. In both of those tasks, she has most artfully succeeded.

Publishers Weekly

Gordon's latest novel opens in medias res on Christmas night in New York City with a phone call from the State Department. Maria Meyers's 20-year-old daughter, Pearl, supposedly studying linguistics for a year in Ireland, has chained herself to a flagpole outside the American embassy in Dublin. For reasons that are unclear, she has starved herself for six weeks and is now in serious danger of dying from dehydration. Without understanding Pearl's motivation for the hunger strike, Maria must try and save her daughter's life. Readers of Gordon's fiction (Spending; The Company of Women) and memoir (The Shadow Man) will recognize familiar themes in her latest book: Maria is a single mother raised as a Catholic by her converted Jewish father; she comes of age in the 1960s and trades her religion for that era's brand of critical thinking. Now, with her daughter dying, Maria must re-examine her faith, her parenting and her political ideals. Told by an unidentified first-person narrator, the story unfolds over the course of a few days. Even as the life-or-death crisis comes to a head, Maria and her best friend, Joseph, are busy tackling God, sacrifice, female autonomy and the meaning of happiness. The novel's conceit provides plenty of opportunities for philosophical musing, but given this set of morose and mostly unlikable characters, the relentless self-examination grows tedious. Agent Peter Matson at Sterling Lord Literistic. 7-city author tour. (Jan. 11) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Nola Theiss - KLIATT

When 20-year-old Pearl Meyers chains herself to a post outside the American Embassy in Dublin, she has already starved herself for six weeks and is prepared to die as a "witness" to the death of a young boy. Her mother, Maria Meyers, and surrogate father, Joseph Kasperman, rush to her, one from America and the other from Rome, only to be turned away at first, leaving them wondering what has led to this situation. This is a story of a particular family, but also a philosophical and religious exploration of family, forgiveness, commitment and love. Mary Gordon explores the lives of all the characters, using an interesting narrative style, to reveal the details of the unusual lives of Maria and Joseph and of Pearl's experience with the "Real IRA" while studying at Trinity College. The violent history of Ireland, as well as the tumultuous lives of her own mother, father and other family members, is brought into play in the development of the characters. It is an intricate book of ideas that would lead advanced students to some meaningful discussions of what is worth dying for on a political and personal level and how family history affects our development. KLIATT Codes: SA--Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2005, Random House, Anchor, 354p., $14.00.. Ages 15 to adult.

Library Journal

In New York City, Maria Meyers, a 50-year-old single mother and force of nature under the best of circumstances, receives an urgent call from the U.S. State Department on Christmas Day in 1998. Her 20-year-old daughter, Pearl, has chained herself to the flagpole of the U.S. Embassy in Dublin and is near death after a six-week fast and several days without water. Maria summons from Rome her lifelong friend Joseph Kasperman, who loves Pearl like a daughter. The Catholic Church, complicated family and class relationships, and current events-mainstays of Gordon's considerable body of work (e.g., Final Payments)-play out powerfully in this riveting tale of a mother's fierce, unstoppable determination to save her daughter. Gordon's genius with the well-placed detail and the seemingly casual comment quite literally alters the history of her characters and creates an atmosphere of nerve-racking tension that hurts. Religion, political martyrdom, and thwarted dreams do battle with maternal desperation and cautious hope. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 9/15/04.]-Beth E. Andersen, Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

An overly intense, multilayered tale about three characters facing a life-and-death situation, a state of affairs brought into being by religion, class, social consciousness, and political activism. Once again, Gordon, astute observer of Catholicism and the inner lives of women in both fiction and nonfiction (Spending, 1998; Joan of Arc, 2000, etc.), continues her quest for meaning. Here, on Christmas night 1998, Maria Meyers receives a call that her 20-year old daughter, Pearl, who is studying Irish at Trinity College, has chained herself to the flagpole outside the American embassy and is near death from self-starvation. As a distraught, uncomprehending Maria flies to Ireland and her beloved only child, an omniscient narrator begins the chronicle, framed by 20th-century history, of Maria, Joseph, and Pearl, a trio strongly evoking the Holy Family. Maria is a child of the '60s. She rebelled against the privileged, repressive Catholic childhood provided for her by her wealthy, conservative father, and had an affair with a refugee from Pol Pot's Cambodia, a doctor who returned to his homeland and certain death, never knowing he had fathered a child. We're then made privy to Pearl's story, the most interesting and freshest of the three, her Dublin experiences with the "new IRA" and, before that, her growing up as the shy daughter of the strong-willed Maria and a surrogate father, Joseph Kasperman. Joseph was Maria's childhood friend, the housekeeper's son whom Maria's father educated and to whom he willed his successful business in religious kitsch. Through the narrator, we learn about Joseph's sacrifice of an academic career to satisfy his obligation to Maria's father, and his obsessionwith doing the right thing. The three converge in Dublin. As Pearl, hospitalized, clings to life, they're forced to face the present and the past, and the question of what's worth the price of staying alive. Elegant prose, thought-provoking plot, mammoth themes-and sometimes slow-going.

Product Details

• Reading Group Guide
• Read an Excerpt

Reading Group Guide

About the Author:
Mary Gordon is the author of the novels Spending, The Company of Women, The Rest of Life, Final Payments, and The Other Side, as well as the memoir The Shadow Man. She has received a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writer's Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the 1997 O. Henry Award for best story. She teaches at Barnard College and lives in New York City.

Discussion Questions from the Publisher
1. The narrator of Pearl commences with an address to the reader, "We may as well begin," and continues on with his/her omniscient view of the story, with occasional asides to the reader. What is the effect of this? How does the narrator tell the story and how does he/she guide us in making judgments on the narrative and the principal characters? Do we follow the narrator when he/she talks directly to us with asides like, "Of course we do not agree with (Pearl)"? Do you like or trust the narrator?

2. The plot of Pearl occurs over the course of about one week (starting with Christmas Day, 1998 and ending just before New Year's) interspersed with flashbacks focusing on the backgrounds and perspectives of the three main characters told in 52 chapters. Why did Mary Gordon choose this structure? And what is its effect on you as a reader?

3. Describe the vital role religion plays in Pearl. How has their Catholic upbringings influenced Maria and Joseph, in similar and different ways? How does the fact that Maria's father is a Jewish convert to Catholicism affect him, his daughter and Joseph? How has the lack of religion in Pearl's childhood affected her? How are music and religion tied for many secondary characters in Pearl?

4. Discuss the themes of betrayal, guilt, and forgiveness in the novel. What types of betrayal occur? What are the causes and consequences? In what ways does each character forgive and how is each forgiven by the end? Would you have forgiven Joseph if you were Pearl? Would you have forgiven or rejected your father if you were Maria? Give some other examples of betrayal and forgiveness in the novel. What is the author saying about the nature of both betrayal and forgiveness?

5. What kind of mother is Maria? How do you think Maria's lack of a mother affected her as a mother? What choices and sacrifices has she made as a single mother? How has this affected Pearl? Describe the other mother-child relationships of Breeda and Stevie, and Joseph and Mrs. Kasperman.

6. What is the definition of family in this novel? What determines or undermines familial relationships? What is the significance of the lack of any traditional family unit (mother, father, and child)?

7. How does history, in particular the legacy of the 1960s and the Vietnam War, influence the plot of the novel? How do world events of the 1960s and 1970s affect the characters in the late 1990s? Why is Pearl so moved by recent Irish history? How are history and memory related in this novel?

8. In what ways is Pearl both sharing a story and commenting on the importance of stories and language in our lives? Why does Pearl write letters before willing herself to die? How and why does she use her body as language for her final message? In what way does Tom's story bring Pearl back to life? Why does Maria use a children's story to feel close to Pearl in the hospital? What is the importance of Pearl's teaching Stevie to read using his own stories? How is the setting of Dublin and Pearl's studies related to the power of language and literature?

9. Maria is the daughter of a wealthy businessman, and Joseph the son of his housekeeper. How have these class differences affected both characters? Does their social status hinder or propel them to action? How does living in Dublin awaken Pearl's social and class consciousness?

10. Discuss the various types of relationships in the novel and explain what defines them. Parent-child; adult-child; friend-friend; doctor-patient; master-servant; male-female; teacher-student.

11. What are the various views of death represented in the novel? Do any of the characters accept and/or understand death? What is the importance of death in Pearl? How would you answer Pearl's question, "Why is it it's life we want?"

12. Explain art and beauty in Pearl. How has Joseph compromised himself and his aesthetic sense by taking over Mr. Meyers' religious art business?

13. Joseph is a reserved, responsible, successful businessman and a good friend to Maria and Pearl. Explain his dual outbursts at the close of the novel-at dinner with Maria and in the hospital with Pearl. Is this in line with his personality or it is the effects of exhaustion and anxiety?

14. Discuss the fine line between captivity and freedom. What stifles the various characters-other people, external circumstances, innate personality traits? Is any character free? How has Maria both confined and freed her daughter; and raised her to be both independent and dependent? How has Devorah's gift and Joseph's devotion to her both fueled and enslaved her? How has duty and responsibility restrained Joseph from reaching his potential?

15. In your view, what is the final message of Pearl?

For further reading:
Charles Baxter, The Feast of Love; Jane Hamilton, Disobedience; Patricia Henley, In the River Sweet; Alice Munro, Runaway.

Read an Excerpt

It 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.

Ten 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.

They leave Maria Meyers off first since she lives in the most northerly part of the city or, as they would say, the farthest uptown.

She 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.

Her 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.

In 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.

She 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.

But 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.

"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."

E-M-E-R-G-E-N-C-Y

The 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.

State 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?

She 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?

Her daughter's name has always been something she was proud of. She always relished people's surprise when they heard it.

What's the baby's name?

Pearl.

A disappointed look. Wanting to say, That's no name for a baby, people would say, "Unusual."

"It's my mother's name," Maria would say.

Then people would say, "Oh, yes, of course." Forgiving her for something.

A 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.

She 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.

She gets, on the fifth ring, Lynne Craig.

"Mrs. Meyers--"

"It's Ms. I'm not married."

This 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.

"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."

"Is she all right?"

"Well, we hope she will be."

"What exactly do you mean by that?"

"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."

"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.

"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."

"She's getting medical help?"

"Yes."

"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."

"Yes, ma'am, whatever you say. Does she have any history of mental instability?"

"Of course not."

"Well, Ms. Meyers, as this is a kind of unusual situation, we'd have to ask that kind of question. Any political involvement?"

"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."

"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."

"My daughter is not disturbed. She's in danger, and I'd like to know what you're doing about it."

"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."

"Isn't it cold there?"

"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."

"Then get the chains off without hurting her."

"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."

Maria 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.

"We were hoping you might have some kind of leverage if you were on-site."

"I'll be on the next plane."

"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."

Maria 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.

But 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.

"First class?" she says. "I'm afraid that's all that's available. The flight leaves JFK at six p.m. tomorrow night."

Tomorrow night. Six p.m. First class. Thousands of dollars. Nineteen hours.

She packs her bag.

Maria 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.

And 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?

Joseph'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.

Maria 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.

Joseph 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.

"Why is she doing it?" Joseph asks.

"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."