Delicate Edible Birds and Other Stories

I enjoyed Groff's last two novels, Arcadia and Fates and Furies, so I decided to try this 2009 contemporary short story collection. Each story features a woman in a crisis situation, the result of which changes her life. In "Lucky Chow Fun," the teenage female captain of an otherwise all-male high school swim team, joins the guys for a night out at a shady Chinese restaurant where events lead her to consider the lives of the young women who live and work there. An American woman, "The Wife of the Dictator," is observed by the women in the compound as her marriage and her husband's situation alter. An attorney who has given up work to be a stay-at-home mom befriends a charismatic but rather crazy woman who she meets in a poetry class. A show more Midwestern farm girl on her honeymoon falls in lust with an international playboy--a lust that lasts her entire life--in "Sir Fleeting." A group of hotel guests skirt around their varied relationships, all wondering about the strange woman upstairs and the possibility of a crime in their midst in "Fugue." My favorite of the nine stories here is "Watershed," which focuses on a young widow who blames herself for her husband's accidental death. Here, Groff creates a tone of mourning that runs as an undercurrent through the entire piece, even as the narrator tells of their childhood and the years-later chance meeting that led to the return of the wife, a professional storyteller, to her small hometown and their marriage.

If you are looking for an uplifting read, this probably isn't it. Most of the stories do not end end happily, and most involve a crime, or at least a serious mistake. But Groff is a wonderful writer, and she has a talent for conveying atmosphere in subtle ways. show less

20th century life did have trials for women and these stories fling many aspects of that in the reader's face. Oh, ouch. But well composed and well aimed, if bleak and at best bittersweet.

Let's start with the title.

Kinda creepy, huh? Or maybe it's the vegetarian in me that finds it so.

Well, if you're interested sampling a great short story collection, move past the appetizer of a title and settle in for a treat. A delicacy, shall we say.

Delicate Edible Birds is author Lauren Groff's second book, her first being the best-seller The Monsters of Templeton. It's a collection of nine stories, most of which have been published in various literary journals.

Of the nine, I enjoyed the first seven - with "Majorette," "Blythe," "Watershed," and "Sir Fleeting" being among the best short stories I've ever read. (As much as I really wanted to, I couldn't get into "Fugue" or "Delicate Edible Birds." I found myself slightly confused and show more re-reading sentences, putting the book down and starting again ... all to no avail.)

These stories are a little dark, particularly so with a few paragraphs in "L. Debard and Aliette." Same with "Lucky Chow Fun," which re-visits Templeton, NY, the setting for Groff's novel, The Monsters of Templeton. Of particular interest to me were the stories set in central Pennsylvania and Philadelphia (especially "Blythe").

In each of the seven stories I read, Groff includes the bird metaphor in some way, but it's done so effectively that it doesn't seem like overkill or heavy-handedness on the author's part. She is also adept at showing the reader what era the story is happening in without specifying the year - "But the newscasters trickled away when a professional football player killed his wife and charged the country with a new angst." - and especially, in developing her characters. (Blythe, from "Blythe" is especially memorable, as is Ancel de Chair - awesome name, no? - from "Sir Fleeting".)

When an author is new to me, I often enjoy discovering them through their short stories (if they have written such). I think it gives a special sense of their writing in an appetizer kind of way while whetting the appetite for a larger, sit-down meal. show less

There is something rather haunting about the way Ms. Groff writes. Each story speaks of need and wanting, longing and wishing, love and grief.

Though the writing format takes a few pages to get used to, you are quickly swept up in each chapters story. One takes place in the town of Templeton featured in her novel. Others take place throughout the world, and throughout time.

The best story for me would have to be the final one, for which the collection was named. This final story recounts an unusual women fleeing Paris with her companions as the German's storm the city. She is faced with an impossible choice during their flight. Refusal means death for the whole group. Acceptance means the utter annihilation of her physical, emotional, and show more mental integrity. She staunchly refuses the offer, however the turning of her companions against her takes away her choice. She is left completely broken while the others attempt to justify their decision. There is no justification for what they do to her however, no matter how they spin it. This story was most interesting to me because it revealed the baseness of human beings. We are fine with making tough decisions so long as they do not detrimentally affect us. When push comes to shove, we expect others to sacrifice for our well-being, no matter the consequences.

The other stories are wonderfully written as well. Some will make you feel once again the ache in your heart for love that never was. Others make you feel angry, or pity, in quick easy turns. It is not always so easy to pick out the villain and the hero in some of these stories, which is a welcome reflection of reality. Ms. Groff has an incredible talent for evoking emotion in her readers, and I would urge you to give this collection a try. It took me awhile to get through the book because she is so deft at creating emotion. However, this is the brilliance of her writing. Don't despair, the endings are worth it. show less

I've never read "Monsters at Templeton," apparently Groff's masterpiece with rave reviews posted everywhere by some mighty minds. But I picked up "Delicate, Edible Birds" at the library during a bird phase, where I blindly gathered only books with nature-driven artwork. I returned home to find three bird covers, one butterfly cover and one tree with a bird cover. Odd but true.

Anyway, I hadn't realized the book was a compilation of stories, something normally unappealing to me, and didn't begin reading it until I was finished with the others. But the first few pages in I was already gripped with intrigue, flipping pages like a madwoman. I'm jealous of Groff's prose, how she wrangles words across the page. It's commanding yet subtle. Her show more stories are devastating, beautiful, cold, heartfelt, all, depending on the page.

I'll pick up "Monsters" on my next library trip and read anything else Groff writes.

More reviews online at http://reviewsbychristine.blogspot.com/ show less

I don't usually read short story collections, but [b:Arcadia|11866694|Arcadia|Lauren Groff|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1347434143s/11866694.jpg|16823763] was so beautifully written, I decided to give this one a try. It killed me. So beautiful and many of them so sad. Wow. Wow. Wow.

Usually I plow through books, gorging myself, because I'm a book glutton. But with this book, I took my time, savoring one story per night, fully immersing myself in each world Groff created.

My favorites are "L. Debard and Aliette," "Majorette," "Blythe," and the final title story which just gutted me.

Realized I had somehow missed this story collection so I had to sneak it in before I read Groff's latest novel. A range of beautifully written and thoughtful stories here, some of which I enjoyed more than others as is the way of such collections but all elegantly crafted.