Delicate Edible Birds and Other Stories
About 1 year ago, I read one of my favorite books in 2008, The Monsters of Templeton, by Lauren Groff (my review). As with any first novel, you always wonder if the author’s subsequent books will be as good. Thankfully, Groff didn’t disappoint and she is officially on my favorite author’s list. She just published, Delicate Edible Birds, a collection of 9 short stories and each one contains the same lyrical prose that I loved in her first book. The central characters in these stories are strong women who live life to the fullest and experience great change within each story.
L. DeBard and Aliette was my personal favorite. The story is set in 1918 and Aliette is a 16 yr old girl who suffered an illness (polio perhaps?) that has rendered her legs as…
…small, wrinkled sticks…..her kneecaps like dinner rolls skewered with willow switches….
L. DeBard is a 43 yr old, former Olympic swimmer who is hired by Aliette to teach her to swim and get her legs working again. Aliette seduces DeBard and they have a passionate love affair. The story ends in tragedy, but I don’t want to give away too much because it was so gripping that I couldn’t put the book down. DeBard and Aliette and their love affair are not the only characters and plot in the story. Groff excels in her ability to so richly describe all her characters and incorporate other fascinating storylines into the main plot. During this time period – an influenza epidemic is ravaging New York and Groff uses this as a backdrop to describe the hysteria and insanity that grips Aliette’s household. Aliette’s former nurse, Rosalind who becomes her father’s lover goes nearly mad with fear of influenza.
…..she makes them wear masks inside. She forces them to carry hot coals sprinkled with sulfur. The apartment stinks like Satan…..And when Aliette comes to L. in the night, she swings her coals like a priestess swinging a censer.
Groff’s imagery completely immerses the reader in the storyline.
Majorette was another favorite of mine. In this story, we follow a girl born in the early 1950’s to a “white-trash” family who pays her little attention. When she is 10 years old, she discovers baton twirling and twirling she does.
She took the hollow ringing in her and twirled it away, ……she sent batons spinning up like whirligigs into the night sky…..”
You can feel the girl’s pain and loneliness through Groff’s description of her behavior:
And she said Yes to the boys who called for her, and Yes to the football players who jogged after her before practice to ask her to the movies, and Yes to parking in the makeout lane, and Yes to their hands under her skirts, and Yes when they pushed their jeans down their thin hips because by then she forgot what it meant to say No.
Baton twirling leads to beauty pageants which lead to a college scholarship, a stable marriage and children of her own. And in Groff’s words:
This is how a life falls into place.
My final favorite is the last story, Delicate Edible Birds. The title refers to l’ortolan, a tiny bird which is an illegal delicacy in France. Secret societies exist in which people blindfold themselves and eat the bird whole. As an aside, my brother who is a chef wanted to name his restaurant L’Ortolan but we convinced him that this would not be appealing to many people.
Bern, the main character in this story, is the most independent and fierce of all. She is a reporter in France at the beginning of the German occupation in WWII. She is fleeing Paris with several colleagues when they are captured in the countryside by a Nazi sympathizer. Bern’s strength and ultimate decision to save her fellow travelers is riveting. I loved this character and even more so when you consider what an enigma she was during this time period.
I often forget how enjoyable a well-written collection of short stories is. Take a break from the novel or whatever you are reading and pick up this book – you won’t regret it.
February 13, 2009 8:12 am 4 Comments
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By Tim, February 13, 2009 @ 4:31 pm
My copy has been sitting on my shelf. I need to bump it up the stack.
By Kerry, March 6, 2009 @ 4:41 pm
Thanks so much for turning my attention to this book. It has just dawned on me too that I’ve read L. DeBard and Aliette before– I think it was in an Atlantic Summer Fiction issue last year or the one before. To think then that I loved Lauren Groff before I even knew her!