MacArthur "genius" and Booker Prize winner George Saunders returns
with a collection of short stories that make sense of our increasingly
troubled world, his first since the New York Times bestseller and
National Book Award finalist Tenth of December
The "best short story writer in English" (Time) is back with a
masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice,
and cuts to the very heart of what it means to live in community with
our fellow humans. With his trademark prose--wickedly funny,
unsentimental, and perfectly tuned--Saunders continues to challenge and
surprise: here is a collection of prismatic, deeply resonant stories
that encompass joy and despair, oppression and revolution, bizarre
fantasy and brutal reality.
"Love Letter" is a tender missive from grandfather to grandson, in the
midst of a dystopian political situation in the not-too-distant future,
that reminds us of our obligations to our ideals, ourselves, and each
other. "Ghoul" is set in a Hell-themed section of an underground
amusement park in Colorado, and follows the exploits of a lonely,
morally complex character named Brian, who comes to question everything
he takes for granted about his "reality." In "Mother's Day," two women
who loved the same man come to an existential reckoning in the middle of
a hailstorm. And in "Elliott Spencer," our eighty-nine-year-old
protagonist finds himself brainwashed--his memory "scraped"--a victim of
a scheme in which poor, vulnerable people are reprogrammed and deployed
as political protesters.
Together, these nine subversive, profound, and essential stories
coalesce into a case for viewing the world with the same generosity and
clear-eyed attention as Saunders does, even in the most absurd of
circumstances.
Cover painting: René Magritte, Man in a Bowler Hat*, 1964 (detail),
(c) 2022 C. Herscovici/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York*
