Ti West first imagined Pearl in his A24 film of the same name as a sympathetic yet brutal female antagonist battling against isolation and madness on her parents’ farm. Now, she’s been transcribed from screen to page in Pearl by Tim Waggoner. Waggoner is no stranger to TV and film adaptations with several notable series under his belt, including Terrifier and Alien. He has a knack for putting us inside the characters’ heads, and his books work well beside their visual counterparts rather than against them. Pearl, already a complex, character-driven thriller, is more devastating than we could have imagined as we get an inside look into Pearl’s descent into psychopathy. 

Pearl is a twisted take on the femme fatale story, but rather than getting her way through seduction and manipulation, Pearl uses more direct approaches like, well, murder. Pearl is a young woman from the middle-of-nowhere East Texas — seriously, the town isn’t even given a name — with big dreams of becoming a movie star. However, she faces several obstacles, including a global pandemic, World War 1, an absent husband, a severely sick father, and an emotionally neglectful mother. 

“Pearl lifted her head and looked into Mama’s eyes, making sure to maintain the contrite expression on her face. She wished she could hear the orchestra one more time, but Mama had killed the music—just like she always did.” 

Her hunger for stardom and desperation to leave her bleak situation eventually led to her madness overwhelming her and going on a murder spree. As someone who is from one of these

middle-of-nowhere towns in East Texas, Pearl’s plight may resonate with me a little more than the average person, murderous intent aside. 

In all seriousness, Waggoner truly captures the inner monologue of a character like Pearl, who does violent and terrible things, and it is expressed in such a way that you almost catch yourself feeling bad for her. Waggoner takes the time to get the reader somewhat comfortable with Pearl before she crosses the point of no return. We see her goals, her dreams, her pain, her love, and her desire for acceptance. We see her as a woman repressed and forced to deny her baser instincts. 

“One day you’ll understand that getting what you want isn’t important. Making the most of what you have is.” 

A big part of this is due to the tension that is built up in Pearl through Pearl’s increasingly disturbing thoughts, questionable actions, and worsening hallucinations. Pearl becomes less human as the novella progresses, so rather than humanizing the monster, we see how the human becomes the monster. 

“It was too bad the sheep had to die, but sacrifices need to be made to bring new life into the world. Every mother knew that.”

Waggoner explores the classic question of Nature VS Nurture, as we know how the madness already within Pearl festers and grows as she loses her sanity and fights for freedom from her sad life and entrapment on the family farm. 

Her relationship with her mother, in particular, is a significant point of contentment as the distance between them widens the more confident Pearl becomes in herself. Pearl is the female hysteria trope in literature, but if you gave the woman from The Yellow Wallpaper a pitchfork and anger issues. 

“They will notice eventually, and they will be frightened. Just as I am.” 

Pearl’s world is no doubt bleak, but the central conflict in the novella stems from such an internal battle that I would not classify the novel as grimdark. It leans heavily into the psychological thriller/horror genres, but man, was it such a fun ride. I also went into this having watched all three movies several times; Pearl has a special place in my heart, so I can’t say if the novella stands by itself as such a knock-out success. I will say Mia Goth’s heart wrenching monologue at the very end did not translate as effectively onto the page, but that speaks more to her abilities as an actress than to Waggoner’s writing abilities. Pearl is one of the few female slashers we have, and I can’t wait to read the following two books in the series to see Waggoner work his magic yet again.

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