“When I think of New York City, I think of all thegirls on parade in the city. I don’t know whether it’s something special withme or whether every man in the city walks around with the same feeling insidehim, but I feel as though I’m at a picnic in this city. I like to sit near thewomen in the theatres, the famous beauties who’ve taken six hours to get readyand look it. And the young girls at the football games, with the red cheeks,and when the warm weather comes, the girls in their summer dresses.”—IrwinShaw, “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses,” from Short Stories: Five Decades (1978)
Not having read this classic short story by Irwin Shaw (1913-1984) in over threedecades, I was surprised to rediscover that it is set in November. But such is the power of the title—which memorably evokesthe intensity of male desire, out and about in the eye-candy factory ofGreenwich Village on an early Sunday afternoon—that it overwhelms memory.
This story was published in The New Yorker in February 1939, but I can’t find a single detailwhich would date it then as opposed to now. There are no references to currentevents, no now-quaint technology, no dialogue with contemporary slang. Shawsimply lets you eavesdrop on Michael and Frances Loomis on a deceptivelybeautiful day that ends with ugly truths.
“The Girls in Their Summer Dresses” can be readrapidly, largely because of its heavy use of dialogue, in one not-very-longsitting, so “slice of life” is a better description of its method than “plot.”Yet, when the story is over, the entire stable axis of the Loomises’ world hasshifted.
Years ago, a guy at a party related to me how hiswife would spot his eye wandering every time an attractive woman passed by.“And guess what? You’re the beneficiary of all that pent-up sexual energy,” hesaid he rationalized to her.
One imagines his wife nodding knowingly and smiling inamusement. It’s not unlike the reaction of Frances in only the third paragraphinto Shaw’s work, as she has to warn her husband that he’ll break his necklooking at a woman as they cross Fifth Avenue.
Before long, we begin to gather that Frances is themore ardent one in the relationship. She kisses him on the tip of the ear; heprotests, albeit mildly, that they’re on Fifth Avenue. She talks about her plan for the day, which,unlike most of their time together, will involve just the two of them; hemumbles one word, “Sure”—not enough to disguise the fact that he’s beendistracted by yet another woman, this one a “hatless girl with the dark hair,cut dancer-style like a helmet.”
This is the seismic break in the story. When Francesspeaks next, it’s “flatly.” Now, she is no longer giggling indulgently at ahuman weakness of the man she loves; he’s demonstrated that he’s incorrigible.From this point on, the dialogue shows how this relationship, having sustainedone collision with an iceberg, gradually but inexorably opens ever more gapingholes. Adverbs take on more meaning because of their spare use throughout. Atthe start of the tale, the couple walk “lightly,” the way a husband and wife still in the first bloom of love do; but after their bickering starts, they joinhands “consciously.” Within minutes, it seems, the bloom has fallen off their five-year marriage, and itwill take a conscious effort from now on that they will find harder to maintainin order to keep it alive.
Michael and Frances drink at a bar in an attempt to ignore the chasm that has opened between them, but the alcohol only spursthem to more threatening candor. Michael rationalizes, even wallowsin, his penchant for ogling; Frances presses him progressively harder toacknowledge the full implications of this. It’s like the lyric from the CarlySimon song “No Secrets”: “You always answer my questions, but they don’t alwaysanswer my prayers.”
At last, Michael admits, under Frances’ prodding,that yes, he would “like to be free,” and that, at some point, he’s “going tomake a move.” I suspect many of my readers have observed moments in the livesof couples they know when they suddenly realize that there’s an irreparablerent in the relationship. These two admissions by Michael represent suchmoments in this story.
Not unlike John O’Hara, Shaw made his fortune inmidlife with sprawling novels that lent themselves to pulp Hollywoodtreatments, such as the films The YoungLions and Two Weeks in Another Townand the miniseries Rich Man, Poor Manand Top of the Hill. “The Girls inTheir Summer Dresses” represents an alternative, better route:sharply observed short fiction. (PBS adapted it for a 1981 episode in its “Great Performance” series, with Jeff Bridges and Carol Kane playing the couple.)
In a post for the blog “The Reading Life,” LosAngeles Times book critic David Ulin analyzed the shattering impact of this“small, grim classic, a story so simple and subtle that it feels like life”:
“Michael and Frances might be any of us, and theeasy, insinuating way their comfortable back-and-forth devolves into somethingmore elemental resonates with the force of argument, of people not so muchcompleting as complicating each other -- no matter what the weather or the timeof year.”
I can’t think of a story that better captures youthfullove turned suddenly fragile on the brink of middle-aged torpor anddisillusionment, featuring a male animal who causes lasting pain in service toa desire that is as evanescent as summer itself.