Winner of the 1996 Drue Heinz Literature Prize.
To author Edith Pearlman, "The stories in Vaquita aim at an intimacy between writer and reader. That imagined reader wants to know who loves whom, who drinks what, and, mostly, who answers to what summons. Thank Heavens for Spike Lee! Before his movies writers and critics had to natter about moral stances; now I can say with a more tripping tongue that my characters are people in peculiar circumstances, aching to Do The Right Thing if only they can figure out what The Right Thing is. If not, they'll at least Do Their Own Right Thing Right."

Edith Pearlman is the author of three other short story collections: Love Among the Greats, winner of the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction; How to Fall, winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction; and Binocular Vision. Her stories have twice won the O'Henry Prize and the PEN Syndicated Fiction Award.