Lauren Groff

Reading further in Lauren Groff's fine collection of stories, Florida, a few themes in her work become increasingly evident. First, she seems particularly drawn to narratives that involve abandonment and survival, in particular but not always involving a female protagonist and almost always a struggle against the elements and living w the consequences of a reckless decision: two children on an island abandoned by their parents who seem to be involved w drug trade, a woman who gives her husband the ok to leave her w kids for a few days in a completely isolated vacation home and who severely injured herself in a fall, a woman going it alone through a Florida hurricanes, and others. She really gets at survival strategies as well as at the need for human connection - we cannot endure alone despite best scout instincts. A perhaps atypical story involves a group of adults and one precocious style in a summer house in France and the awkward interrelationships that ensue - the story is of isolation of a different sort we might say, people isolated from the feelings of others and indifferent to the presence of a child. This story is a one of her novels in miniature and is impressive for how much ground Groff can cover without ever seeming superficial - tho it is hard at times in the 6-character piece to keep the characters straight: who's speaking now? This story could be adapted for the stage I think. A third Groff element is, eel, the elements; she's claimed a piece of geography - centra Florida - as her own, and she doesn't miss an opportunity to give us a sense of Florida at its gamiest and most elemental - the rot, the creeping foliage, the heat, the storms, the isolated lakes and ponds, the snakes and the predators, a place where human beings feel like intruders.

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