Honeydew, it’s explained in this collection’s title story, is a name for what’s described in Exodus as manna: “a fine frost on the ground with a taste like honey”, thought to be a miracle from God to the starving Israelites, but now understood to be the sugary excrement of beetles. The story’s two characters are an anorexic schoolgirl who considers insects her kin and her middle-aged headmistress who is having an affair with the girl’s father. Like the Israelites, they’re getting by on moments of sweetness that are banal or divine, depending on one’s viewpoint.

Pearlman, who is from New England, is approaching 80 and her mastery of the short story form continues to deepen. She’s been working for three decades, but has received recognition as a top-tier writer only recently: a “best-of” collection, culled from her previous three, won the National Book Critics Circle award in 2011.

The duality signified by honeydew suffuses this new book, which is full of descriptions of the human body as both an object needing wearisome upkeep and as the magical home of the soul. The first story concerns a widow who runs a pedicure salon, providing “soapy heaven” as she exfoliates feet. Her husband was lost to war, when “each of his parts was severed from the others, and his whole – his former whole – was severed from Paige”. Like the heap of dead skin that was once part of her client, her husband’s limbs have undergone transubstantiation in reverse.

Another story concerns a house plant that no one can classify. “He often wondered what unanticipated being Plant was destined to become,” thinks its owner, who wonders even more frequently how it stays alive on a diet of coffee dregs, mouthwash, herbal remedies and conversation. His conclusion is the only one possible: “a mystery, isn’t it”.

Honeydew is published by John Murray, £16.99. Click here to buy it for £13.59