Pearl

By: Mary Gordon

Narrated by: Kymberli Colbourne

On Christmas night of 1998, Maria Meyers learns that her 20-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.

©2005 Mary Gordon (P)2010 Audible, Inc

Interesting premise well executed

I heard about this book in a women 's magazine and it is certainly chick lit. I felt I really got to know the characters . Kept my interest throughout. Learned about Irish history

Martyrdom and Motherhood

No, this is not a book about mothers as martyrs--that's a different story. Rather, the would-be martyr here is the daughter who is starving herself in protest of the inherent tendency of humans to "do harm" to others, particularly as manifested in the death of a boy within the strife of a divided Ireland. The author employs this setting to explore questions of guilt, forgiveness, love, the value of life and the value of death in the service of a higher cause.

It is an intriguing premise, but unfortunately falls short in its execution. Intermittent stirrings of suspense are quickly buried under the weight of brooding introspection. There are moments of real insight, especially the sections on the inherent mystery of each human being to another within even the closest of relationships.

Nevertheless, while the questions it addresses are thought-provoking, the book itself is tough to get through. An excerpt from the Publishers Weekly review sums it up well: "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 [the mother] 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."