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Pearl Schiff; novelist depicted Hub night life
July 30, 2005 By Tom Long, Globe Staff
Pearl (Cohen) Schiff was a Beacon Hill housewife when her scandalous novel ''Scollay Square" made the best-seller lists in 1952. ''This book will shock you," warned the dustcover of the sensational novel, about an affair between a sailor and a young woman in Boston's red-light district. ''It was a taboo-breaking book that shocked people in Boston, much like 'Peyton Place' did," said mystery writer Evan Marshall. ''It took an unflinching look at the seamy side of Boston." Mrs. Schiff, who also wrote book reviews for the Globe for many years, died Thursday at Goddard Nursing Home in Jamaica Plain. She was 89. Mrs. Schiff said she never could have written ''Scollay Square" without her husband, Dr. Louis Schiff. ''He really should get at least half the credit for the book," she said in a story published in the Boston Record American in 1953. She explained that she and her husband spent three nights a week in the bars and nightclubs of Scollay Square gathering material. ''I had to learn to drink ale, and I could usually make two bottles last all evening," she said. ''There was a daring aspect to her," said Marshall, of New Jersey, the author of the Jane and Winky mystery series. ''She was a woman who broke taboos like writing about premarital sex when we didn't do that." Mrs. Schiff wrote the book while raising two small children. ''I wrote most of the book in between baby-tending, cooking, cleaning, and ironing," she said. ''My portable typewriter moved between the living room, bedroom, and the set of tubs in the kitchen." She said she made a lot of friends while sampling the darker side of Boston night life, and she was afraid they might object when the book came out. But several bought copies and asked her to sign it. ''Their approval made me happier than good reviews from critics," she said. The bars and strip clubs of Scollay Square, which were probably more popular with visiting sailors than locals, were razed during the urban renewal period of the 1950s and 1960s to make way for Government Center. Mrs. Schiff was also the author ''Walk a Narrow Line," a novel about a single mother raising a daughter, which was published in 1966 and was probably a little ahead of its time. A graduate of Radcliffe College, Mrs. Schiff was a proofreader for the Globe until her retirement in 1978. She led tours of the newspaper in her retirement. Dr. Schiff died in 1989. For the past several years, while working on her autobiography, Mrs. Schiff led a memoir-writing class for the Council on Aging in Sharon, where she lived. ''She was a dynamic, powerful person who was able to pull the best out of the members. She made them feel like real writers," said Susan Edinger, a social worker and volunteer coordinator at the council. Mrs. Schiff also made Marshall feel like a writer in 1962 when he was a young man and looking for guidance. Marshall, who was living in Boston, wrote a fan letter to Mrs. Schiff and asked her how one became a writer. She invited him to coffee and spent a couple hours explaining not only how to become a writer but the nuts and bolts of getting published. ''She was a generous and spicy lady," Marshall said. Mrs. Schiff leaves a son, Arthur of Coral Springs, Fla.; a daughter, Janet Sherman of Brookline; and five grandchildren. A funeral will be held tomorrow at 10 a.m. in Schlossberg and Solomon
Funeral Home in Canton. Burial will be in Sharon Memorial Park.
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