Delicate Edible Short Stories

In the silliness of my youth—until I was twenty-five or so—I was known to avoid short stories. They seemed dreadfully unfinished in comparison to the novels I was accustomed to reading, and their brevity left me wanting more. Short stories were the stuff of high school English courses and college survey courses, and once I was done with those I rarely wanted to look back. As I began teaching my own Introduction to Literature classes as a college instructor, it became absolutely necessary to revisit the dreaded short story. Fortunately, what I found was a new appreciation for the genre, and I was reminded that a story can be just as much fun to read, and just as involved as any novel. Short story characters can be rich, the details intriguing, and the conflicts immense.

I'm smack dab in the middle of Lauren Groff's collection, Delicate Edible Birds. In general, her work is diverse and daring. She takes her characters to places the reader might not expect—sometimes uncomfortably so—but the stories are always poetic, fully realized, and polished, but one stunning story has captured my imagination and stands out as a prime example of Groff’s artistry. “L. Debard and Aliette” is the title, and it's a dazzling piece of writing.

Groff’s female protagonists, as the title suggests, are delicate (edible birds) —emotionally, physically, intellectually or all of the above. In the case of sixteen-year-old Aliette Huber, a rich man's daughter with legs damaged by what I suspect is polio, she is delicate physically, though that is the extent of her weakness. Her father hires former world-class swimmer and struggling poet, L. Debard, to give his daughter swimming lessons. Because Aliette is largely bound to her bed by the weakness and pain in her legs she spends hours a day lost in books, and she has a special fondness for poetry. She appreciates L. Debard's work, has read his first book (largely ignored by the literary world) and can recite the poems after only one reading.

Though her father and nurse treat her like a young child, Aliette is mischievous and savvy. She soon begins to seduce L. Debard during their daily lessons. While the easy way out would have been to have Aliette's father or nurse discover the affair and squelch it immediately, Groff extends the couple’s story instead of taking a quick, simple way out.. As the strength in her legs increases, so does the urgency and depth of Aliette’s relationship with L., both physically and emotionally. They actually manage to foster a full-blown relationship. They fall in love.

Part of what makes this story so sparkly and memorable is the setting. L. and Aliette live through the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, which killed 600,000 people—most of them young. Groff creates a great contrast between the richness and opulence of the story's opening with the dark days of the epidemic. L. and Aliette begin their swimming lessons in the Amsterdam Hotel natatorium, which Groff describes this way:

It is a lovely pool of green tile, gold-leaf tendrils growing down the sides and a bold heliotrope of yellow tile covering the bottom. The walls and ceiling are sky blue. They cannot use it during guest hours and must swim either in the early morning or at night.

Both, insists L., hating to take so much money from Mr. Huber for so little work. He comes early for the first lesson, marveling at the beautiful warmth and crystal water. He leaps from the sauna to the pool, laughing to himself. His moustache wilts in the heat.

However, as the flu epidemic moves into the city the tone of the story grows far darker:

The plague hits New York like a tight fist. Trains rolling into the boroughs stop in their tracks when engineers die at the controls. After 851 New Yorkers die in one day, a man is attacked for spitting on the streets.

Mr. Huber sends his six servants away, and they are forbidden to return until the end of the plague. Three out of them won't return at all. Mr. Huber, Aliette, Rosalind, and L. remain. They seal the windows, and Mr. Huber uses his new telephone to order the groceries. They buy their food in cans, which they boil before opening, and their mail is baked piping hot in the oven before they read it.

I adore Groff's descriptions which are often as poetic and surprising as her plots. Vivid imagery, like the fact they baked their mail, kept me rapt as I read about L. and Aliette’s delicate situation. The metaphors wound me up in a knot as I waited for the story to unravel. Groff can make the exceptionally ugly parts of tragedy and human nature bearable and interesting.

Those familiar with the story, may already realize that “L. Debard and Aliette” is a reimagining of the tale of Abelard and Heloise. That couple’s story, outlined by their letters, is a remnant of the medieval era and an example of courtly love. Abelard was a French philosopher, Heloise’s tutor, and twenty years her senior. The two fell in love and had an affair, but they were ultimately separated and punished in tragic and painful ways. As a result, Abelard became a monk and Heloise went into a convent, which is when they wrote their famous letters. While theirs is a tragic story in many ways, it is also unusual in the way that it diverts from our typical idea of tragedy in that Abelard and Heloise went on with their lives instead of, say, killing themselves.

While Groff’s story is enjoyable and meaningful without knowledge of Abelard and Heloise, the work is informed and enriched by some understanding of its allusions. L. Debard and Aliette manage to escape a typical tragic fate because they too manage to go on with their individual lives in the wake of their relationship’s end. Like Abelard and Heloise, theirs is largely a story of endurance and renewal.

At the core, one of the parts of the short story reading experience I have grown to love is the way that well-written pieces allow me a brief glimpse into another reality. I find short stories have something of a chain reaction effect. Or maybe a potato chip effect—I can never eat (or read) just one. “L. Debard and Aliette” leads to Abelard and Heloise, which will probably remind me of another story I need to read, and so on and so forth. It’s a chain reaction of the best kind. It leads to an endless array of reading adventures.

Books mentioned in this column:
Delicate Edible Birds: And Other Stories by Lauren Groff (Hyperion, 2009)


Andi is a recovering university academic employed by the North Carolina community college system as an English instructor. While she decided to forego a Ph.D. and career as a professor, she fills in all the free time her current position affords her with editing literary publications, reviewing, freelancing, and blogging at Tripping Toward Lucidity: Estella’s Revenge. Her work can be found in the journal, Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS), and Altar magazine as well as online in various venues such as PopMatters.com. She is a member of the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC), and writes fiction. Her turn-ons include new books and gelato, while her turn-offs are reality television and washing dishes. Contact Andi.