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An atmospheric, existential ride of a debut story collection that hums with desire and adventure.
Told in precise prose, the stories in La Perla offer a moody, raw, and playful glimpse into the psyches of women adventuring toward the promise of self-discovery. Marmura’s characters pursue quests with tough determination and exuberant, if possibly reckless, spontaneity. They are often searching for safety as they move through a heightened sensory world of cars and trucks, clothes, beaches, towns, heat, and landscapes like the heart of a conch shell. These are women who tread the line between adventure and shelter, who explore places, people, their own daydreams and fantasies, and who nullify longing through vivid imagination and the pursuit of beauty.
Like a string of highly polished pearls, these stories elicit something of what connects us all: a vulnerability to beauty, an inclination to explore, and an instinct for compassion.
Phoebe Marmura is a Palestinian–American writer and artist whose work explores desire, femininity, domestic adventure, and reclusion. A two-time semi-finalist for the Giancarlo DiTrapano Foundation residency, she was also shortlisted for the MASS MoCA residency, and her writing has appeared in a range of literary journals in print and online. Marmura was born in Rochester, NY, and lives in Fredericton, New Brunswick.