New Yorker Fiction 2014

A WRITER'S WIT
What a difficult thing it is to ask someone's advice on a matter without coloring his judgment by the way in which we present our problem.
Blaise Pascal
Born June 19, 1623

Rising Once Again

Adam Stennett

June 23, 2014, Maile Meloy, “Madame Lazarus”: A Parisian man gives his male lover, the nameless narrator, a small dog, which he does not really want. ¶ Yet Cordelia, the dog, keeps the nameless narrator, an old man, company when his young lover is out of town. A fine narrative seems capable of juggling several important events, some in the past bouncing in interesting ways off those closer to the present. Meloy’s story accomplishes this (not so) simple task beautifully. ¶ As a young boy, the narrator falls for another boy, who is tortured by the Germans during World War II. They meet again after the war, and the lover, now with tuberculosis, dies on the narrator’s parents’ dining room floor. This seminal event—witnessing the death of a young love—continues to resonate throughout the narrator's life. ¶ Cordelia ages, as dogs do, and one day dies on a Parisian pavement. The nameless narrator attempts to revive the dog, as he had wished to revive his lover on that dining room floor. Meloy’s ending is satisfying because she takes an old, old conceit and makes it her own. A being can sometimes rise from the dead, but, in the end what does such a miracle really mean? ¶ Meloy’s The Apothecary came out in 2011.
Adam Stennett, Illustrator

NEXT TIME: MY BOOK WORLD

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