Pearl

Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2023

Siân Hughes author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:The Indigo Press

Published:11th May '23

Should be back in stock very soon

Pearl cover

Marianne is eight years old when her mother goes missing. Left behind with her baby brother and grieving father in a ramshackle house on the edge of a small village, she clings to the fragmented memories of her mother’s love; the smell of fresh herbs, the games they played, and the songs and stories of her childhood. 

As time passes, Marianne struggles to adjust, fixated on her mother’s disappearance and the secrets she’s sure her father is keeping from her. Discovering a medieval poem called Pearl and trusting in its promise of consolation, Marianne sets out to make a visual illustration of it, a task that she returns to over and over but somehow never manages to complete. 

Tormented by an unmarked gravestone in an abandoned chapel and the tidal pull of the river, her childhood home begins to crumble as the past leads her down a path of self-destruction. But can art heal Marianne? And will her own future as a mother help her find peace?

An interview with author Siân Hughes: ‘the heart of the mystery is this dangerous ground of motherhood’ – Lucy Writers Platform

-- Rym Kechacha * Lucy Write

  • Short-listed for Man Booker Prize (Novel) 2023

ISBN: 9781911648529

Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 17mm

Weight: 250g

224 pages