Pearl: Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2023

Longlisted for The Booker Prize 2023 & Shortlisted for The Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award 2024 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? Praise ‘Pearl, an exceptional debut novel, is both a mystery story and a meditation on grief, abandonment and consolation, evoking the profundities of the haunting medieval poem. The degree of difficulty in writing a book of this sort – at once quiet and hugely ambitious – is very high. It’s a book that will be passed from hand to hand for a long time to come.’ — The Booker Prize 2023 judges ‘Hughes’s novel, which is wonderful on the detail of a late 20th-century rural English childhood and at its best recalls Edna O’Brien’s masterful A Pagan Place, is radical in largely dispensing with dramatic tension in order to create a circling story that maps the lasting impact of a loss.’ — The Guardian ‘Pearl is a novel that has wisdom and experience distilled into it, that defies its downbeat subject matter with the joy of its telling.’ — The Times ‘Compulsive and wonderfully written, Pearl is a small gem.’ — The TLS ‘A quietly beautiful novel, full of grief and English poetry… A rare gem that fully deserves its Booker longlisting, and your attention.’ — The Telegraph ‘The prose has a bubbling verve that is deeply appealing.’ — The Financial Times ‘A really beautiful story . . .  It’s a special book.’ —The New York Times ‘A masterful novel, shot through with legend and song. It can be read on many levels: as a mystery, as a story of grief and healing, as a response to a poem. But most of all, it can be read as a story of love.’ — The Boston Globe ‘[A] gorgeous novel…. Marianne sees her grief and love reflected in the preserved, 14th-century lines [of the poem Pearl] …. Hughes’s placid and deep novel chains sorrows to each other as the narrative unfurls, creating a delicate tether connecting moments of loss.’ — Literary Hub ‘Pearl is full of the gentle landscape and hallowed folklore of English village life, sometimes with a slightly gothic cast . . . [A] tender debut novel.’.’ — BookPage starred review ‘Siân Hughes touches on topics of youth, memory, grief, with an enchanting grace, as bewitching as the traditional English folk songs, be they for children or crueler pieces, which accompany the book. We are reminded of “A Pagan Place” by Edna O’Brien, for bringing up the rural life, and of Laura Kasischke’s works, for speaking of teenagers’ problems. But above all, we are captivated by this poetic voice which gives the novel its magnetic charm and resonates like a consolation, like a song for the ghosts.’ — ELLE Magazine, France ‘Seamus Heaney award winner Hughes takes the classic text of the medieval poem Pearl as the root for this stunning debut.’ — The Sunday Post ‘Vivid, haunting and a deeply satisfying read.’ — Nation ‘Pearl is a gorgeous, swirling, haunted and haunting potion of a book. It embodies like no other the truth that every absence is as singular and elaborate and mysterious as the presence of the thing – or person – it describes, no matter how back to front, inside out, lucidly or ethereally memories of its particulars may come and go. How utterly moving, to be under its beautiful, artful spell.’ — Paul Harding, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Tinkers and This Other Eden ‘If you love Kate Atkinson, you’re going to love this book . . . It is a pleasure to read.’ — Suzy Davies, Conservative AM ‘Siân Hughes’s voice moves us because she manages the difficult art of putting wit to the service of strong feeling – a rare achievement.’ — Hugo Williams, author of Billy’s Rain ‘Haunting, compelling, beautifully written; translates mythic and literary undercurrents into a modern setting.’ — Bernard O’Donoghue, author of The Seasons of Cullen Church ‘An utterly gripping psychological mystery.’ — Maureen Freely, author of My Blue Peninsula ‘A ghost story, a folk story, a story of loss and familial haunting, Sian Hughes’ Pearl is an enchanting and eerie exploration of how a child lays down the bones of an ancient past – a medieval poem – as a means of recuperating the voice of lost loved ones. A story about how we tell stories in the face of yawning gaps and deep sorrow.’ — Sally Bayley, author of The Green Lady ‘It’s a beautiful, searching novel from start to finish – vividly told and movingly elegiac in its unfolding understanding of the psychology of loss. A terrific achievement.’ — Jane Draycott, author of The Kingdom ‘Hughes’ writing is beautiful, full of details of space and place that give you the sense of being right by Marianne as she lives and breathes. The novel is written in the kind of first person narration that holds your gaze close to whatever the character experiences rather than tells us the story of their lives, with all its accompanying misdirection and philosophising.’ — Rym Kechacha, author of Dark River ‘Stunning, enchanting and riveting, Siân Hughes’ Pearl is a treasure to read. Pearl is beguiling in its beauty and will leave you aching for Marianne and her family, as she unravels the story of her mother’s life.’ — Mirandi Riwoe, author of Stone Sky Gold Mountain ‘In Hughes’ debut novel about motherhood, there is as much wisdom as there is abrasion.’ — Jerry Pinto, author of The Education of Yuri ‘It’s glorious and made me weep.’ — Annie Garthwaite, author of The King’s Mother ‘Wonderfully deft. The characters are extraordinary (the father is heartbreaking). Pearl was the best novel I read last year, and will remain a favourite.’ — Michelle de Kretser, author of Theory & Practice