This week we have a guest essay, a chapter from Will Heinrich’s novel The Pearls.

The book follows Henry Corn, a soda jerk and occasional pickpocket in 1920s New York City, as he bounces between two love interests: Dot Cohen, a no-nonsense Coney Island barmaid, and Marion Hammer, the daughter of fabulously wealthy banker Felix Hammer. In this chapter ("The Color of the Sky"), which takes place shortly after an extreme night out, Felix invites Henry to the Hammer Building for the first time.

Will Heinrich was born in New York and spent his early childhood in Japan. His novel The King's Evil, published by Scribner in 2003, won a PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship in 2004; his most recent novel, The Pearls, was published by Elective Affinity in 2019. He has been an art critic for the New Yorker, the New York Observer, Hyperallergic, Art in America and, since 2017, the New York Times.

The Pearls is only available as a signed and numbered limited edition directly from Elective Affinity. An audiobook of the Pearls is available now on Apple Music.

Excerpts of the song Smoke by Ruka were played in this podcast

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