The Language of Baklava

Sixteen-year old Diana is bored and restless at school. Her guidance counselor notices her state and advises her to try to get into college a year early—an idea Diana welcomes. She manages to persuade Bud, who lets her go to the university where her aunt and uncle teach, 30 miles up the road. She stays in an all-girls dorm, and her parents pay for all her meals.

Bud arranges for Diana to work in the campus “Sweet Shoppe” after he meets the Palestinian owner. The shop sells old-fashioned candies in jars and is a popular hangout. The food on campus is so bad that Diana stops dining there and lives on sweets instead, losing weight and becoming sugar-addicted. She starts dressing like a punk rocker, though she dresses conservatively when she visits home. Her relationship with Bud improves: “The sizzling stress between the two of us […] dissipated” (218). They often talk about the safe topic of Bud’s family history. However, Diana can no longer eat her father’s cooking without suffering terrible nausea and vomiting. She wonders if this is psychosomatic but says, “[T]he sickness is so immense, crashing over and swamping my whole body, that I can’t imagine that it’s something that comes simply from my mind” (217).