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Liberation Day
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.
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.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published October 18, 2022
About the author
George Saunders
105 books9,270 followersGeorge Saunders was born December 2, 1958 and raised on the south side of Chicago. In 1981 he received a B.S. in Geophysical Engineering from Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. He worked at Radian International, an environmental engineering firm in Rochester, NY as a technical writer and geophysical engineer from 1989 to 1996. He has also worked in Sumatra on an oil exploration geophysics crew, as a doorman in Beverly Hills, a roofer in Chicago, a convenience store clerk, a guitarist in a Texas country-and-western band, and a knuckle-puller in a West Texas slaughterhouse.
After reading in People magazine about the Master's program at Syracuse University, he applied. Mr. Saunders received an MA with an emphasis in creative writing in 1988. His thesis advisor was Doug Unger.
He has been an Assistant Professor, Syracuse University Creative Writing Program since 1997. He has also been a Visiting Writer at Vermont Studio Center, University of Georgia MayMester Program, University of Denver, University of Texas at Austin, St. Petersburg Literary Seminar (St. Petersburg, Russia, Summer 2000), Brown University, Dickinson College, Hobart & William Smith Colleges.
He conducted a Guest Workshop at the Eastman School of Music, Fall 1995, and was an Adjunct Professor at Saint John Fisher College, Rochester, New York, 1990-1995; and Adjunct Professor at Siena College, Loudonville, New York in Fall 1989.
He is married and has two children.
His favorite charity is a project to educate Tibetan refugee children in Nepal. Information on this can be found at http://www.tibetan-buddhist.org/index...
After reading in People magazine about the Master's program at Syracuse University, he applied. Mr. Saunders received an MA with an emphasis in creative writing in 1988. His thesis advisor was Doug Unger.
He has been an Assistant Professor, Syracuse University Creative Writing Program since 1997. He has also been a Visiting Writer at Vermont Studio Center, University of Georgia MayMester Program, University of Denver, University of Texas at Austin, St. Petersburg Literary Seminar (St. Petersburg, Russia, Summer 2000), Brown University, Dickinson College, Hobart & William Smith Colleges.
He conducted a Guest Workshop at the Eastman School of Music, Fall 1995, and was an Adjunct Professor at Saint John Fisher College, Rochester, New York, 1990-1995; and Adjunct Professor at Siena College, Loudonville, New York in Fall 1989.
He is married and has two children.
His favorite charity is a project to educate Tibetan refugee children in Nepal. Information on this can be found at http://www.tibetan-buddhist.org/index...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,984 reviews
August 2, 2023
A lot like Tenth Of December, which I loved, but with more similar themes throughout about class, labor, and the delusional justifications people use to dehumanize each other.
March 29, 2023
This set of nine varied stories is rich in absurdity and derision…
George Saunders is a real connoisseur of dystopian entertainments…
Three amnesiac slaves pinioned to the wall and plugged into some device make topical speeches to entertain their master’s guests… Speeches are platitudinous, tasteless and boring…
The master’s son, full of ideals, wishes to liberate his father’s slaves…
But do slaves want to be liberated?
Masters and slaves… Chiefs and subordinates… Bosses and minions… Family life… Work… All sorts of relationships all down the line…
There always were, are and will be those who use others and those who are used.
George Saunders is a real connoisseur of dystopian entertainments…
Three amnesiac slaves pinioned to the wall and plugged into some device make topical speeches to entertain their master’s guests… Speeches are platitudinous, tasteless and boring…
Even as we make our Cities, however, we sense that Company is not thrilled. They gaze down at their feet, pretend to be reading the programs printed up by adult son Mike earlier in his room. Some yawn, others glance at the ceiling, as if longing to escape up through it.
The master’s son, full of ideals, wishes to liberate his father’s slaves…
“A bunch of old rich people get to hear an old rich guy tell the story of a bunch of youngish imperialist oppressors dying gloriously,” says adult son Mike. “Performed by a group of people who, unbeknownst to themselves, are currently being oppressed by the old guy and his rich pals in the audience, who he insists on boring to death every few weeks and who consent to it in the name of friendship and are thereby made complicit in the whole oppressive shit show.”
But do slaves want to be liberated?
Masters and slaves… Chiefs and subordinates… Bosses and minions… Family life… Work… All sorts of relationships all down the line…
Why were some old people so dumb? As to get fired? Yet sweet? Who could get that old and still not know the basic stuff about how to do stuff? That’s just how it was. Probably even back in caveman times there’d been smart cavepeople and dopey old sweet ones gazing over sad-eyed at the smart ones as the smart ones chewed on some big old leg of meat while looking back at the dumb ones like: Sucks for you.
There always were, are and will be those who use others and those who are used.
July 21, 2022
This is the latest short story collection from George Saunders, there are 9 short stories that focuses on a diverse group of people, examining human nature, often from offbeat and imaginative angles, and focuses on themes that include poverty, inequality, power, class, exploitation, revenge, love and disappointment. There are astute observations of the state of our world, so many issues that raise worries and questions over which Saunders registers his concerns. He ably captures the ways in which people's minds can work, the way we can interact with each other and act out in the world, which he achieves with his admirable brevity of prose, wit, humour, humanity and satire, whilst venturing into science fiction, technology and fantasy territory, along with more recognisable pictures of individuals and our world as it is. The 9 stories are:
Liberation Day
The Mom of Bold Action
Love Letter
A Thing at Work
Sparrow
Ghoul
Mother’s Day
Elliott Spencer
My House
In a dystopian world, the poor are enslaved with the purpose of entertaining the wealthy, and Custer's last stand is revisited. An unnoticeable couple, invisible to others, find each other and love, devoted, a light in the world to comprise more than the sum of their individual parts. A mother has a awful relationship with her children but is unable to see how she contributes to it. Another mother over-obsesses about her son, this informs the over-reaction that follows. After unprecedented changes in our government, a grandfather writes a letter to his grandson, how he never expected to see pillars in society that he thought would stand come under fire, how he did little to prevent this situation arising, whilst simultaneously telling his grandson to be careful. There are the characters and judgementalism in a office, memories of the vulnerable are scraped, the existence of a nightmare Colorado amusement park, and efforts to buy a house.
I might not have appreciated every story, but I did love most of them, they illustrate the power of short stories beautifully, perceptively reflecting the darkness, fears, injustice, political turbulence, anxiety and bleakness of the world we live in yet still shot through with hope. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.
Liberation Day
The Mom of Bold Action
Love Letter
A Thing at Work
Sparrow
Ghoul
Mother’s Day
Elliott Spencer
My House
In a dystopian world, the poor are enslaved with the purpose of entertaining the wealthy, and Custer's last stand is revisited. An unnoticeable couple, invisible to others, find each other and love, devoted, a light in the world to comprise more than the sum of their individual parts. A mother has a awful relationship with her children but is unable to see how she contributes to it. Another mother over-obsesses about her son, this informs the over-reaction that follows. After unprecedented changes in our government, a grandfather writes a letter to his grandson, how he never expected to see pillars in society that he thought would stand come under fire, how he did little to prevent this situation arising, whilst simultaneously telling his grandson to be careful. There are the characters and judgementalism in a office, memories of the vulnerable are scraped, the existence of a nightmare Colorado amusement park, and efforts to buy a house.
I might not have appreciated every story, but I did love most of them, they illustrate the power of short stories beautifully, perceptively reflecting the darkness, fears, injustice, political turbulence, anxiety and bleakness of the world we live in yet still shot through with hope. Highly recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.
October 18, 2022
When I first pick up a George Saunders book I find myself a little disoriented… but I invest a little trust, a little patience, and the payoff is well worth it. In his Booker Award winning novel “Lincoln in the Bardo” I stopped short and started up again, not sure I was following things. Once I got the hang of it I was amazed– it is one of my favorite books. In “Tenth of December,” an earlier collection of his, it was jarring to finish one story and then transition into a completely different world, with dissimilar voices and alternate versions of reality. This can be true of any anthology, of course, but Saunders’ selections are so diverse and independent of one another.
“Liberation Day: Stories” is his latest collection. He once again shows why many consider him to be the finest short story writer practicing today. The imagination, creativity and dark humor are driving while questions are posed about our behavior. Personal freedoms are looked at in stories such as “Liberation Day,” where three characters are attached to a wall and obligated to perform for a wealthy man and his friends. In “Elliot Spencer” we see a man being brainwashed and cleansed of his memory so that he may serve in the employ of a political group. “Ghoul” examines Hellish underground amusement park workers who may or may not have been told the truth about their fate. In Saunders’ most overtly political story, “Love Letter,” a elderly man explains to his son how democracy lost so many freedoms when it did not take “clownish leaders” seriously.
Not every story here is political or sci-fi / fantasy. In “Mom of Bold Action” we are in the mind of a mother out to seek vengeance for a relatively minor attack on her young son. She goads her husband into exacting retribution on a possible suspect. She feels bad about the consequences for the man in question… but her guilt has its limits. In “Mother’s Day” there is a showdown in a hailstorm between two women, long time rivals, who have only ever seen the other as undeserving of the man they both loved.
Every story here is a gem, every tale thought-provoking and entertaining. Highly recommended reading.
Thank you to Random House Publishing and NetGalley for providing the advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #LiberationDay #NetGalley
“Liberation Day: Stories” is his latest collection. He once again shows why many consider him to be the finest short story writer practicing today. The imagination, creativity and dark humor are driving while questions are posed about our behavior. Personal freedoms are looked at in stories such as “Liberation Day,” where three characters are attached to a wall and obligated to perform for a wealthy man and his friends. In “Elliot Spencer” we see a man being brainwashed and cleansed of his memory so that he may serve in the employ of a political group. “Ghoul” examines Hellish underground amusement park workers who may or may not have been told the truth about their fate. In Saunders’ most overtly political story, “Love Letter,” a elderly man explains to his son how democracy lost so many freedoms when it did not take “clownish leaders” seriously.
Not every story here is political or sci-fi / fantasy. In “Mom of Bold Action” we are in the mind of a mother out to seek vengeance for a relatively minor attack on her young son. She goads her husband into exacting retribution on a possible suspect. She feels bad about the consequences for the man in question… but her guilt has its limits. In “Mother’s Day” there is a showdown in a hailstorm between two women, long time rivals, who have only ever seen the other as undeserving of the man they both loved.
Every story here is a gem, every tale thought-provoking and entertaining. Highly recommended reading.
Thank you to Random House Publishing and NetGalley for providing the advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #LiberationDay #NetGalley
May 16, 2022
Often short stories read to me like sketches, unexpandable ideas, or scenes cut out from longer works, but with George Saunders, short stories are perfect little worlds, entire unto themselves. Liberation Day: Stories can be broadly divided into weirdly imaginative and expansive near-future tales (generally with a greater class divide and the have-nots further exploited by the fat cats and their strange tech) and stories that feature extreme close-ups into folks’ inner monologues (generally with ironic or humorous results). In each story, the writing is precise, the voices varied and pitch perfect, and it all adds up to a scathing indictment of modern life. Simply masterful. (Note: I read an ARC and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.) The stories:
Clocking in at nearly 30% the length of this collection, the titular story reads like classic near-future sci-fi Saunders: In this striking examination of human nature, enslaved people (acting as Speakers or Singers) are Pinioned to a Speaking Wall in rich folks’ homes, and via input from devices implanted in the base of the performers’ necks, the systems’ owners are able to concoct spoken/sung “jams” for the amusement of themselves and their Company. Liberation Day is told from the POV of one such Speaker, Jeremy, and it’s uncomfortable to watch as his only concern is to perform well enough for Mr U and his Company to maybe get some attention from the beautiful Mrs U (who doesn’t often enjoy her husband’s jams but does engage in secret late night sessions with Jeremy in which she gets him to concoct romantic scenes and tell her how pretty she is). When the Speakers and Singers are upgraded with new tech that deepens their knowledge base, they are programmed to perform the story of Custer’s Last Stand — from the POVs of all involved — and not only does Saunders make this story intensely evocative of the senseless tragedy, but for the reader to experience the unprovoked attack on a village of Indigenous people in the past, via the performance of indentured peoples in the future, it forces you to consider your current place in the continuum of exploitation: Just who is suffering today because we (I) don’t afford them full humanity? From the line-by-line writing to the overall message, this was an absolute stand out.
A woman with a history of schlocky, unpublished writing (even her internal monologuing is schlocky) unleashes a regrettable series of consequences with her first sincere project.
An old man in a near future police state writes a letter to his adult grandson, apologetically trying to explain how American citizens gradually lost their freedoms through small concessions to the government. On the one hand, this felt a little obvious and partisan (in a “they came for my neighbour and I said nothing” kind of a way), but on the other hand, one does read the news.
This one was pretty funny: Through rotating POVs between people in an office (who all spend a lot of time judging each other and lying to themselves), we learn just how unknowable other people actually are.
What a sweet little love story about a woman so common that no one expected much for her: The magic is in the way that Saunders seems to subvert every fact as soon as it’s stated — she seems like this but this happens; she looks like that, but this…and then she has it all and it filled my heart.
Sometimes it takes a weird mashup of Palahniuk, Orwell, and M. Night Shyamalan to shine a light on our own weird world.
A bitter old woman who always blamed others for the unhappiness in her life is forced to make a reckoning. As in A Thing at Work, we learn more about characters by what they think of others than how they present themselves.
In echoes of the title story, in this melancholic near future tale, the disadvantaged are moulded into mindless tools for the use of others. But what happens when your tools remember they’re human, too?
This brief story echoes Mother’s Day as an ageing man is confronted with his own faults in the face of death.
4.5 stars, rounding up.
What is right, what is wrong? In this situation? What a small question! What is great? That is what my heart longs to ask. What is lush? What is bold, what is daring? In which direction lies maximum richness, abundance, delight? ~Liberation Day
Clocking in at nearly 30% the length of this collection, the titular story reads like classic near-future sci-fi Saunders: In this striking examination of human nature, enslaved people (acting as Speakers or Singers) are Pinioned to a Speaking Wall in rich folks’ homes, and via input from devices implanted in the base of the performers’ necks, the systems’ owners are able to concoct spoken/sung “jams” for the amusement of themselves and their Company. Liberation Day is told from the POV of one such Speaker, Jeremy, and it’s uncomfortable to watch as his only concern is to perform well enough for Mr U and his Company to maybe get some attention from the beautiful Mrs U (who doesn’t often enjoy her husband’s jams but does engage in secret late night sessions with Jeremy in which she gets him to concoct romantic scenes and tell her how pretty she is). When the Speakers and Singers are upgraded with new tech that deepens their knowledge base, they are programmed to perform the story of Custer’s Last Stand — from the POVs of all involved — and not only does Saunders make this story intensely evocative of the senseless tragedy, but for the reader to experience the unprovoked attack on a village of Indigenous people in the past, via the performance of indentured peoples in the future, it forces you to consider your current place in the continuum of exploitation: Just who is suffering today because we (I) don’t afford them full humanity? From the line-by-line writing to the overall message, this was an absolute stand out.
Keith yelled that he was going for a run. Wow. Keith hadn’t gone running in years. It was as if reading her essay had made him want to be as good at something as she was at writing. Not to brag. But that was what good writing did, she realized: you said what you really thought and it made a kind of energy, and that sincere energy flowed into the mind of the reader. It was amazing. She was an essayist. All these years she’d just been working in the wrong genre. ~The Mom of Bold Action
A woman with a history of schlocky, unpublished writing (even her internal monologuing is schlocky) unleashes a regrettable series of consequences with her first sincere project.
I just want to say that history, when it arrives, may not look as you expect, based on the reading of history books. Things in there are always so clear. One knows exactly what one would have done. ~Love Letter
An old man in a near future police state writes a letter to his adult grandson, apologetically trying to explain how American citizens gradually lost their freedoms through small concessions to the government. On the one hand, this felt a little obvious and partisan (in a “they came for my neighbour and I said nothing” kind of a way), but on the other hand, one does read the news.
That was Brenda. Nice lady, lots of issues, okay, but come on. This was a place of work. ~A Thing at Work
This one was pretty funny: Through rotating POVs between people in an office (who all spend a lot of time judging each other and lying to themselves), we learn just how unknowable other people actually are.
She always seemed to be reading directly from a book on how to be most common. “Are those apples fresh?” someone would ask, and she’d say, “I suppose they are pretty fresh.” “Was that an earthquake just now?” someone would ask, and she’d say, “If it was, it will be on the radio.” ~Sparrow
What a sweet little love story about a woman so common that no one expected much for her: The magic is in the way that Saunders seems to subvert every fact as soon as it’s stated — she seems like this but this happens; she looks like that, but this…and then she has it all and it filled my heart.
I guess one never realizes how little one wants to be kicked to death until one hears a crowd doing that exact same thing to someone nearby. ~Ghoul
Sometimes it takes a weird mashup of Palahniuk, Orwell, and M. Night Shyamalan to shine a light on our own weird world.
Something had spoiled Paulie and Pammy. Well, it wasn’t her. She’d always been firm. Once she’d left them at the zoo for disobeying. When she’d told them to stop feeding the giraffe they’d continued. She’d left them at the zoo and gone for a cocktail, and when she returned Pammy and Paulie were standing repentant at the front gate, zoo balloons deflated. That had been a good lesson in obedience. ~Mother’s Day
A bitter old woman who always blamed others for the unhappiness in her life is forced to make a reckoning. As in A Thing at Work, we learn more about characters by what they think of others than how they present themselves.
Sometimes, to do good, there are steps along the way at which goodness must be temporarily set aside or lost sight of, says Jer. ~Elliott Spencer
In echoes of the title story, in this melancholic near future tale, the disadvantaged are moulded into mindless tools for the use of others. But what happens when your tools remember they’re human, too?
That letter exists in my mind. But I am too tired to write it. Well, that is not true. I am not too tired. I’m just not ready. The surge of pride and life and self is still too strong in me. ~My House
This brief story echoes Mother’s Day as an ageing man is confronted with his own faults in the face of death.
4.5 stars, rounding up.
November 4, 2022
Liberation Day is a weirdly unique collection of short stories. Most focus on morality and knowing right from wrong. Some are futuristic, some are about politics (both government and workplace), some are about love, one is about a house as a possession, and there are a couple that I wasn't entirely sure what they were about.
George Saunders is a creative genius. I'm just not always on his level, nor do I want to be.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
George Saunders is a creative genius. I'm just not always on his level, nor do I want to be.
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
October 22, 2022
George Saunders is a brilliant short story writer but he’s also capable of writing some absolute drek - unfortunately, Liberation Day is down there with the likes of The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil and Fox 8 as among his most dire work. What’s worse is that the garbage is unrelenting - there’s no story here that’s even half decent!
The titular story is one of the horrendous and opens the collection - at least it sets the tone of awfulness that’s to come! It’s barely comprehensible - a feature that’s applicable to the majority of the stories here. Something about robots or AI performing historical re-enactments and it’s somehow a commentary on social media…? No idea.
I tried reading Fox 8 a few years ago and couldn’t do it. It’s written in the first person (animal?) of a fox narrating a story and it’s written in this twee, irritating style that’s completely unreadable. Saunders does the same thing with Liberation Day, doing some experimental drivel that only added to my confusion as a reader who didn’t know what was going on or why.
As bad as Liberation Day is, that’s nothing compared to the worst story here, Elliott Spencer, which takes the experimental narration to the next level of sheer frustration. Again, I had no idea what the story was about - I gather it’s about a person who’s become a robot or something because they donated their body to medical science…? This story is simply an exercise in patience. Hats off to you if you can make it through without getting a headache.
The other stories aren’t good but you at least know more or less what’s going on in them, even if you don’t care. The Mom of Bold Action is about a mom whose kid gets pushed by an elderly homeless and who decides to seek vengeance upon them - incompetently. A Thing At Work is a story of office politics and class injustice. My House is about a guy trying to buy a house from an old weirdo.
Some stories are so unremarkable, I wonder if they weren’t added to make up the page count more than anything. Love Letter is a tedious narrative about a dystopian future America. Sparrow is about a woman who falls for a man at the store she works at. Mother’s Day is about grown-up kids and their estranged, elderly parents. Ghoul is another dystopian future story about humanity living underground because climate change, I think? I got the sense that Saunders was trying to do more feeble commentary on social media (using the “correct” vocabulary, witch hunts, etc.).
This is one of the worst books I’ve read all year, and easily the worst short story collection by Saunders to date. The stories are a mix of unmemorable, vague or plain annoying fictions that were an unbelievably tedious trial to unrewardingly trudge through. A total waste of time - liberate yourself by never reading Liberation Day! George Saunders can write superb short stories and, if you’re interested in reading those, I recommend Civilwarland in Bad Decline and Pastoralia instead of this horrorshow of a book.
The titular story is one of the horrendous and opens the collection - at least it sets the tone of awfulness that’s to come! It’s barely comprehensible - a feature that’s applicable to the majority of the stories here. Something about robots or AI performing historical re-enactments and it’s somehow a commentary on social media…? No idea.
I tried reading Fox 8 a few years ago and couldn’t do it. It’s written in the first person (animal?) of a fox narrating a story and it’s written in this twee, irritating style that’s completely unreadable. Saunders does the same thing with Liberation Day, doing some experimental drivel that only added to my confusion as a reader who didn’t know what was going on or why.
As bad as Liberation Day is, that’s nothing compared to the worst story here, Elliott Spencer, which takes the experimental narration to the next level of sheer frustration. Again, I had no idea what the story was about - I gather it’s about a person who’s become a robot or something because they donated their body to medical science…? This story is simply an exercise in patience. Hats off to you if you can make it through without getting a headache.
The other stories aren’t good but you at least know more or less what’s going on in them, even if you don’t care. The Mom of Bold Action is about a mom whose kid gets pushed by an elderly homeless and who decides to seek vengeance upon them - incompetently. A Thing At Work is a story of office politics and class injustice. My House is about a guy trying to buy a house from an old weirdo.
Some stories are so unremarkable, I wonder if they weren’t added to make up the page count more than anything. Love Letter is a tedious narrative about a dystopian future America. Sparrow is about a woman who falls for a man at the store she works at. Mother’s Day is about grown-up kids and their estranged, elderly parents. Ghoul is another dystopian future story about humanity living underground because climate change, I think? I got the sense that Saunders was trying to do more feeble commentary on social media (using the “correct” vocabulary, witch hunts, etc.).
This is one of the worst books I’ve read all year, and easily the worst short story collection by Saunders to date. The stories are a mix of unmemorable, vague or plain annoying fictions that were an unbelievably tedious trial to unrewardingly trudge through. A total waste of time - liberate yourself by never reading Liberation Day! George Saunders can write superb short stories and, if you’re interested in reading those, I recommend Civilwarland in Bad Decline and Pastoralia instead of this horrorshow of a book.
August 21, 2023
Brilliant, unsettling and uncomfortable stories about a near future or an unheimlich present. Amazing how well Saunders get us fully in the mindset of someone, and makes us experience the world from their perspective.
I just want to say that history, when it arrives, may not look as you expect, based on the reading of history books. Things in there are always so clear. One knows exactly what one would have done.
Saunders does morality and unlikeable characters so well it is uncanny.
Deeply unsettling, yet still sardonically fun, this bundle is amazing.
Liberation Day
Company may rest assured: none of them will be harmed. Not tonight, anyway.
Well, you can’t be for the freedom and against the killing
Absolutely brilliant, and best read without any pre-knowledge, besides that it is a story about self realisation, exploitation (in multiple dimensions) and the ambiguity of human feelings.
The mom of bold action
There were limits. To what one could do. She’d fucked up, they fucked up, but they weren’t gods, they were people, limited, emotional people who sometimes made ill-advised -
You are trapped in you
Sweet guy. Weak guy.
Amazing how well Saunders get us fully in the mindset of someone, and makes us experience the world from their perspective. From righteous anger to self directed justice to consequences. Stunning how something seemingly trivial is transformed into a gripping story.
Love letter
I just want to say that history, when it arrives, may not look as you expect, based on the reading of history books. Things in there are always so clear. One knows exactly what one would have done.
We were not prepared to drop everything in defense of a system that was, to us, like oxygen: used constantly, never noted. We were spoiled, I think I am trying to say.
Brilliant, morality of being silent and sensible being questioned in a letter with just one named character
A thing at work
No: she was no thief. I mean, she was but she wasn’t. Okay, she was.
Brilliant cutting descriptions of power struggles at work, questioning who wins and who losses in a battle between educated, pretty and uneducated and unattractive
Where do you get your insane confidence is definitely a question one could have based on this story.
Sparrow
She always seemed to be reading directly from a book on how to be most common.
A story starts of cynical but takes an unexpected turn
Ghoul
A bit weird, about a closed of society and how their denial turns into horror and oppression
Mother’s Day
If she was wrong about this, there was no right.
Saunders does unlikeable but recognizeable women brilliantly
Mother who had everything except love versus a woman who had love and nothing else.
A new start.
Elliot Spencer
Sometimes, to do good, there are steps along the way at which goodness must be temporarily set aside or lost sight of, says Jer.
A story about identity and loss. What is a person with memories editable at will, basically for sale for causes?
Grim and heartbreaking in a certain manner.
My house
It was always falling down around you, everything has always been falling down around us. Only we were too alive to notice.
A melancholy tale about obsession and ownership
I just want to say that history, when it arrives, may not look as you expect, based on the reading of history books. Things in there are always so clear. One knows exactly what one would have done.
Saunders does morality and unlikeable characters so well it is uncanny.
Deeply unsettling, yet still sardonically fun, this bundle is amazing.
Liberation Day
Company may rest assured: none of them will be harmed. Not tonight, anyway.
Well, you can’t be for the freedom and against the killing
Absolutely brilliant, and best read without any pre-knowledge, besides that it is a story about self realisation, exploitation (in multiple dimensions) and the ambiguity of human feelings.
The mom of bold action
There were limits. To what one could do. She’d fucked up, they fucked up, but they weren’t gods, they were people, limited, emotional people who sometimes made ill-advised -
You are trapped in you
Sweet guy. Weak guy.
Amazing how well Saunders get us fully in the mindset of someone, and makes us experience the world from their perspective. From righteous anger to self directed justice to consequences. Stunning how something seemingly trivial is transformed into a gripping story.
Love letter
I just want to say that history, when it arrives, may not look as you expect, based on the reading of history books. Things in there are always so clear. One knows exactly what one would have done.
We were not prepared to drop everything in defense of a system that was, to us, like oxygen: used constantly, never noted. We were spoiled, I think I am trying to say.
Brilliant, morality of being silent and sensible being questioned in a letter with just one named character
A thing at work
No: she was no thief. I mean, she was but she wasn’t. Okay, she was.
Brilliant cutting descriptions of power struggles at work, questioning who wins and who losses in a battle between educated, pretty and uneducated and unattractive
Where do you get your insane confidence is definitely a question one could have based on this story.
Sparrow
She always seemed to be reading directly from a book on how to be most common.
A story starts of cynical but takes an unexpected turn
Ghoul
A bit weird, about a closed of society and how their denial turns into horror and oppression
Mother’s Day
If she was wrong about this, there was no right.
Saunders does unlikeable but recognizeable women brilliantly
Mother who had everything except love versus a woman who had love and nothing else.
A new start.
Elliot Spencer
Sometimes, to do good, there are steps along the way at which goodness must be temporarily set aside or lost sight of, says Jer.
A story about identity and loss. What is a person with memories editable at will, basically for sale for causes?
Grim and heartbreaking in a certain manner.
My house
It was always falling down around you, everything has always been falling down around us. Only we were too alive to notice.
A melancholy tale about obsession and ownership
August 14, 2022
This is George Saunders first collection of short stories for a decade and follows his Booker shortlisted novel Lincoln in the Bardo, which I described as “flawed but brilliant.”
I would struggle to apply the same praise here. Ultimately these are well crafted tales but, relative to my expectations, I found the collection underwhelming. The blurb hails the author, quoting Time, the “best short-story writer in English” and perhaps in a way that is the issue since, compared to say the three story collections that have won the Republic of Consciousness Prize in recent years these feel very much within the conventions of the form rather than stretching them.
For me, the least successful stories are those where Saunders attempts dystopian fiction, most notably the title story (60pp), Ghoul (31pp) and Elliot Spencer (29pp), all at an awkward length between focused story and fleshed out novella. Each gives us an odd set-up:
• Liberation Day a world where poor people volunteer to have their memories erased, so their families benefit from funds, and serve as an odd in-house entertainment system;
• Ghoul people serving in an underground ghost-train where there never seem to be any Visitors, but pointing this out is a Regrettable Falsehood punishable by being kicked-to-death by the rest of the group;
• Elliot Spencer a world where vulnerable people have their memories erased, in a Scrape, so they can be reprogrammed as political protestors, meaning the protagonist of the story has to relearn Words Worth Knowing in Explain Time (leading to a fractured narrative style).
This clunky use of Capitals to designate these are New Concepts is rather endemic to Saunders’ style in these three stories, this from Liberation Day:
We wonder avidly. Though not aloud. For there may be Penalty. One may be unPinioned before the eyes of the upset others and brought to a rather Penalty Area. (Here at the Untermeyers’, a shed in the yard). In Penalty, one sits in the dark among shovels. One may talk. But cannot Speak. How could one? To enjoy the particular exhilaration of Speaking, one must be Pinioned. To the Speaking Wall.
Liberation Day also replays the details of the Battle of the Greasy Grass (aka Custer's Last Stand) for reasons that passed me by.
If Saunders is attempting to comment on the current trends in the US, he does so rather more successfully (and directly) in Love Letter, which at 10 pages also feels less padded. This is a letter from a man to his grandchild, acknowledging that his own generation failed to act in time to prevent the political trend to authoritarianism, but still advocating caution. This story was featured in the New Yorker in 2020 but feels apposite in the week after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade.
Seen in retrospect, yes: I have regrets. There was a certain critical period. I see that now. During that period, your grandmother and I were working on, every night, a jigsaw puzzle each, at that dining room table I know you know well. We were planning to have the kitchen redone, were in the midst of having the walls out there in the yard rebuilt at great expense, I was experiencing the first intimations of the dental issues I know you have heard so much (perhaps too much) about. Every night, as we sat across from each other, doing those puzzles, from the TV in the next room blared this litany of things that had never before happened, that we could never have imagined happening, that were now happening, and the only response from the TV pundits was a wry, satirical smugness that assumed, as we assumed, that those things could and would soon be undone and that all would return to normal—that some adult or adults would arrive, as they had always arrived in the past, to set things right. It did not seem (and please destroy this letter after you have read it) that someone so clownish could disrupt something so noble and time-tested and seemingly strong, something that had been with us literally every day of our lives. We had taken, in other words, a profound gift for granted. Did not know the gift was a fluke, a chimera, a wonderful accident of consensus and mutual understanding.
The Mom of Bold Action (29pp) was the collection’s highlight for me, a relatively simple domestic tale of a obsessive mother seeking revenge for a minor physical assault on her son, but with a twist in the narrative style. The mother is a children’s book author - her current work is ‘Henry the dutiful ice-cream truck tyre’(!) - and she sees the world through the lens of story ideas.
Mother’s Day (25pp) is perhaps closest to Lincoln in the Bardo: a widow and her husband’s lover see each other across the road, but the reckoning between them is more existential, and in the next world, rather than this.
Sparrow (8pp) and My House (7pp) are both rather sentimental tales, lacking the edge Saunders tries to apply elsewhere.
And A Thing at Work (25pp) is a comic story of how a petty dispute at work elevates, although it didn’t really work for me and for odd takes on mundane office life, Ben Pester’s Am I In The Right Place takes this to a much higher level.
And that ultimately was my issue with this collection. Unlike with his Booker-shortlisted novel it feels other writers, English-speaking and translated, are doing far more interesting things with the form.
2.5 stars rounded to 2 because of the disappointment versuis my high expectations.
Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.
I would struggle to apply the same praise here. Ultimately these are well crafted tales but, relative to my expectations, I found the collection underwhelming. The blurb hails the author, quoting Time, the “best short-story writer in English” and perhaps in a way that is the issue since, compared to say the three story collections that have won the Republic of Consciousness Prize in recent years these feel very much within the conventions of the form rather than stretching them.
For me, the least successful stories are those where Saunders attempts dystopian fiction, most notably the title story (60pp), Ghoul (31pp) and Elliot Spencer (29pp), all at an awkward length between focused story and fleshed out novella. Each gives us an odd set-up:
• Liberation Day a world where poor people volunteer to have their memories erased, so their families benefit from funds, and serve as an odd in-house entertainment system;
• Ghoul people serving in an underground ghost-train where there never seem to be any Visitors, but pointing this out is a Regrettable Falsehood punishable by being kicked-to-death by the rest of the group;
• Elliot Spencer a world where vulnerable people have their memories erased, in a Scrape, so they can be reprogrammed as political protestors, meaning the protagonist of the story has to relearn Words Worth Knowing in Explain Time (leading to a fractured narrative style).
This clunky use of Capitals to designate these are New Concepts is rather endemic to Saunders’ style in these three stories, this from Liberation Day:
We wonder avidly. Though not aloud. For there may be Penalty. One may be unPinioned before the eyes of the upset others and brought to a rather Penalty Area. (Here at the Untermeyers’, a shed in the yard). In Penalty, one sits in the dark among shovels. One may talk. But cannot Speak. How could one? To enjoy the particular exhilaration of Speaking, one must be Pinioned. To the Speaking Wall.
Liberation Day also replays the details of the Battle of the Greasy Grass (aka Custer's Last Stand) for reasons that passed me by.
If Saunders is attempting to comment on the current trends in the US, he does so rather more successfully (and directly) in Love Letter, which at 10 pages also feels less padded. This is a letter from a man to his grandchild, acknowledging that his own generation failed to act in time to prevent the political trend to authoritarianism, but still advocating caution. This story was featured in the New Yorker in 2020 but feels apposite in the week after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade.
Seen in retrospect, yes: I have regrets. There was a certain critical period. I see that now. During that period, your grandmother and I were working on, every night, a jigsaw puzzle each, at that dining room table I know you know well. We were planning to have the kitchen redone, were in the midst of having the walls out there in the yard rebuilt at great expense, I was experiencing the first intimations of the dental issues I know you have heard so much (perhaps too much) about. Every night, as we sat across from each other, doing those puzzles, from the TV in the next room blared this litany of things that had never before happened, that we could never have imagined happening, that were now happening, and the only response from the TV pundits was a wry, satirical smugness that assumed, as we assumed, that those things could and would soon be undone and that all would return to normal—that some adult or adults would arrive, as they had always arrived in the past, to set things right. It did not seem (and please destroy this letter after you have read it) that someone so clownish could disrupt something so noble and time-tested and seemingly strong, something that had been with us literally every day of our lives. We had taken, in other words, a profound gift for granted. Did not know the gift was a fluke, a chimera, a wonderful accident of consensus and mutual understanding.
The Mom of Bold Action (29pp) was the collection’s highlight for me, a relatively simple domestic tale of a obsessive mother seeking revenge for a minor physical assault on her son, but with a twist in the narrative style. The mother is a children’s book author - her current work is ‘Henry the dutiful ice-cream truck tyre’(!) - and she sees the world through the lens of story ideas.
Mother’s Day (25pp) is perhaps closest to Lincoln in the Bardo: a widow and her husband’s lover see each other across the road, but the reckoning between them is more existential, and in the next world, rather than this.
Sparrow (8pp) and My House (7pp) are both rather sentimental tales, lacking the edge Saunders tries to apply elsewhere.
And A Thing at Work (25pp) is a comic story of how a petty dispute at work elevates, although it didn’t really work for me and for odd takes on mundane office life, Ben Pester’s Am I In The Right Place takes this to a much higher level.
And that ultimately was my issue with this collection. Unlike with his Booker-shortlisted novel it feels other writers, English-speaking and translated, are doing far more interesting things with the form.
2.5 stars rounded to 2 because of the disappointment versuis my high expectations.
Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC.
November 12, 2022
Liberation Day is a collection of stories that managed to pull me up short, leave me perplexed only to then somehow devastate me in the end. Using unusual writing structures at times, often reflecting strange things done to or by some of his people (they feel much more than characters to me), Saunders presents some overtly, some less, political, historical and science fiction based tales…often all intermingled.
I often found myself dropped into an unknown world at the start of each story, having to read; compelled to continue to discover the “logic” of the piece and the people inside it. “Liberation Day”, the first story, required that attention. Beings somehow attached to a wall who perform at another’s whim and instruction, seeming to have no other life.
“Love Letter” feels like a more real world, only slightly apocalyptic tale as a man writes to his grandson about the world they live in now. As he writes:
I wish with all my heart that we could have passed it all on to you intact… That regret I will take to my grave. Saunders is so observant of the details of what is lost.
I go to find my favorite stories and the list includes most of the nine: the two already mentioned, “Sparrow”, a variation on a love story; “Ghoul”, another story with often startling moments that accentuate its power; “Elliott Spencer”, the story of a man whose mind has been lost; and “My House”, the strangest house sale story I have ever read. I liked every story in the book actually.
I highly recommend this collection to those who like short stories. These are not traditional, perhaps, but they are so well done and deserve the care of reading them closely.
A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.
I often found myself dropped into an unknown world at the start of each story, having to read; compelled to continue to discover the “logic” of the piece and the people inside it. “Liberation Day”, the first story, required that attention. Beings somehow attached to a wall who perform at another’s whim and instruction, seeming to have no other life.
“Love Letter” feels like a more real world, only slightly apocalyptic tale as a man writes to his grandson about the world they live in now. As he writes:
I wish with all my heart that we could have passed it all on to you intact… That regret I will take to my grave. Saunders is so observant of the details of what is lost.
I go to find my favorite stories and the list includes most of the nine: the two already mentioned, “Sparrow”, a variation on a love story; “Ghoul”, another story with often startling moments that accentuate its power; “Elliott Spencer”, the story of a man whose mind has been lost; and “My House”, the strangest house sale story I have ever read. I liked every story in the book actually.
I highly recommend this collection to those who like short stories. These are not traditional, perhaps, but they are so well done and deserve the care of reading them closely.
A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.
November 29, 2022
A collection of short stories by Saunders, although the first one is more like a novella. Let's dive in.
STORY ONE: LIBERATION DAY
Here is what I wish to say, dearest one, trapped as I am on this desolate, godless hillside, surrounded by demons who wish to destroy me: because I have known such a moment with you (the firelight playing across the walls; the dog asleep against the door; the bed shifting beneath us, as if making approving commentary in its own unique language), I may die now, if I must die, knowing I have truly lived. pg. 25
This is an intelligent story with beautiful and dream-like writing. A great 63-page science-fiction novella IMO. One I'd even like to see fleshed-out into a full-blown novel.
I never knew Saunders wrote science-fiction, indeed, this is the first Saunders book I've ever picked up although it's quite possible I've read his short stories in The New Yorker.
Giving you a plot summary seems unwise, it's better to go into this cold. It deals with themes of MINOR SPOILERS
It's also genuinely funny – surprising, since it deals with some heavy and uncomfortable topics. Saunders was making me smile wryly at some points here – quite a feat, I have to give the man props.
The writing is exquisite, if you enjoy not only beautiful writing but stunning ideas that science-fiction usually tackles, this will be for you.
And yet I myself have never participated in such depredations, and "fair play" does not seem like "fair play" when you are the one who, within minutes, is to be made victim of whatever foul, sharp-bladed mischief these fellows intend. pg. 50
RELATED MATERIAL:
Star Trek: First Contact https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117731 1996
12 Monkeys https://www.imdb.com/title/tt01147461995
The East https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1869716 2013
New Species book series by Laurann Dohner https://www.goodreads.com/series/6425...
Hostiles https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5478478 2017
STORY TWO: THE MOM OF BOLD ACTION
This story is so hilarious.
A mom who is a writer is always anxiously hovering over her son and her imagination always runs away with her. She's also married to a fellow moron. Hijinks and wild misunderstandings ensue.
I was laughing out loud so much while reading this, and everyone was staring at me because I was in public.
No one told me Saunders was so fucking funny.
"The Tree Who Longed to Come Inside." Once there was a tree who longed to come inside and sit by the woodstove. He knew this was weird. He knew that his fellow trees were being cruelly burned in there. But gosh, the kitchen looked so inviting. Because of all the hard work the mother had done. Painting and whatnot. When she should have been writing. The smoke pouring out of the chimney smelled so nice. The flesh of his fellow trees, burning, smelled amazing.
Yikes.
Restart. pg. 69
There's also a whole schtick in here about George Washington masturbating as a boy that's hysterical. Great job by Saunders, a laugh out loud story that's also tragic. Most of his stories are a blend of comedy and tragedy.
STORY THREE: LOVE LETTER
This is a story about a future in which the right-wingers turn America into a fascist state. A grandfather is trying to explain to his grandson why he was unable to stop it. The grandson is upset because his friend/girlfriend is being imprisoned by the state for 'not being patriotic,' i.e. not ratting out her friends.
This is a great, prescient, and might be a little too on-the-nose for readers worried about the future of the United States of America.
After a third attempt was rejected, I found myself pulled over, up near the house, for no reason I could discern. The cop (nice guy, just a kid, really) asked what I did all day. Did I have any hobbies? I said no. He said: Some of us heard you like to type. I sat in my car, looking over at his large, pale arm. His face was the face of a kid. His arm, though, was the arm of a man.
How would you know about that? I said.
Have a good night, sir, he said. Stay off the computer.
Good Lord, his stupidity and bulk there in the darkness, the metallic clanking from his belt area, the palpable certainty he seemed to feel regarding his cause, a cause I cannot begin, even at this late date, to get my head around, or view from within, so to speak.
I do not want you anywhere near, or under the sway of, that sort of person, ever. pg. 98
STORY FOUR: A THING AT WORK
Another story with a lot of humor, even though it has a realistic yet sad ending.
One thing I will say negatively about Saunders that comes out in this story is his inability to understand a promiscuous woman and his inability to understand why women make the sexual choices they make. I find this to be a very difficult thing for male writers to grasp, oftentimes (95% of the time), male authors who delve into a female characters mind make her sexual reasoning just ludicrous. They often don't understand female sexuality one bit, ESPECIALLY when they are trying to write about a promiscuous woman's thought processes (which they often are, because they love writing about promiscuous women despite not understanding them in the least bit).
If you can set that aside as a female reader, the rest of the story is great: amusing and tragic, as is Saunders's wont.
Last night this guy on the bus had looked over at her like: Uh, what's with the paper towels, lady? And she'd gone, in her mind: Hey, loser, I stopped by CVS on my way to the bus, up yours, idiot, and by the way, the reason they're not in a bag is, I told the CVS kid no thanks, because of the environment, unlike you, who just now dropped your frigging gum wrapper on the floor, slob.
No, she loved people. People were great. Even that dolt on the bus. He'd probably given her that cranky look because he'd had a bad day, which, given that ugly mug? No surprise there. Who'd marry that? Nah, even ugly folks got married. They married other uglies. It all worked out. Plus, she herself wasn't married. At the moment. She'd been married once. To Norbert. Norb the Orb. That ugly guy on the bus had probably never been married at all. Too ugly. Poor dope. Once the cranky look faded off that dweeb's judgmental puss, he'd gone back to staring out the window, all sad now, like he was thinking back to when he was in grade school and all of life was still ahead of him and he hadn't yet realized how ugly he was. Or maybe he only got ugly later, gradually, in high school. He'd stand at the mirror before gym class, going: What the what? Is my face ever going back to regular?
But no, it wasn't. pg. 110
STORY FIVE: SPARROW
One of the few non-tragic stories in here, about an unlikely pairing.
STORY SIX: GHOUL
Great story, another tragi-comedy. Quite prescient and funny as well. Thought-provoking, as most of Saunders's stories are.
This is another sci-fi, this time about people living underground.
"I just couldn't blow my whistle on you," Amy says, "I've found you cute since we were little."
"I've found you cute, too," I say.
Which I haven't, that much, but it seems like a bad moment to begin violating politeness. pg. 149
STORY SEVEN: MOTHER'S DAY
I hated this story. Really highlights how Saunders does not understand how women feel about sex and why they make the sexual decisions that they do. He's a fine writer in many aspects, but this is one area in which he continually misses the mark.
It's also a hateful and confusing story. The weakest in here, IMO.
STORY EIGHT: ELLIOTT SPENCER
Saunders seems obsessed with the idea of futuristic slavery in which poor people, homeless people sign their lives away to have their minds wiped and live as brainwashed slaves. Not only this story, but also the story/novella LIBERATION DAY deals heavily with these themes Saunders is fixated on.
This is a typical Saunders story in my opinion. Funny and sad. You are laughing reading it, then you are crying reading it. Saunders definitely has a distinct voice, but I think he's a skilled author with some good ideas.
This is about paid protesters, except the hired protesters are actually people who are enslaved and brainwashed. Again, a grim future involving enslaved poor people by Saunders.
When will I DEATH? Might I DEATH alone? Probably yes Little scared about that. I must say
But am not DEATH yet
Not DEAD yet.
Not yet.
And not yet. pg. 225
Very emotional, touching story.
RELATED MATERIAL
A Bum Deal https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8...
Bloodshot imdb.com/title/tt1634106/
Laurann Dohner's New Species series https://www.goodreads.com/series/6425...
STORY NINE: MY HOUSE
Kind of a pointless story, but I understand Saunders is trying to make a statement about life's meaning.
TL;DR
Wonderful book. I was pleasantly surprised. I had never read Saunders before, and from his reputation I never would have guessed that he was so fucking funny. Honestly I laughed out loud while reading this. He's very clever.
Despite that, most of his stories are tragedies and you could say he has a rather grim view of the world. Dark humor seems to be his forte.
He's thought-provoking. Given the nature of the stories and also their degree of heaviness, I would not sit down and read this in one sitting. I would ration them out. You will need time to digest each story and also (no offense to Saunders) take a break from his writing, which can get to be a bit much in high doses.
My only complaints are: his writing gets tiresome if you read too much of it, and b.) his failure to understand women's sexuality. I wish male authors would just skip presenting us with the inside of women's heads in sexual situations if they don't know what the fuck they are talking about. Put women in your story, but maybe don't put a woman's inside perspective on sex unless you know what you are talking about and have had some heterosexual cisgendered females read it and approve it for you. I'd say at least five. Otherwise heterosexual males ideas about what drives women sexually is so fucking weird I just can't deal with it. Yet they are hellbent determined to write about it. Saunders is FAR from the only guilty one on this, though. MANY male authors do this.
Will make you laugh and cry. Skilled writing. Avoid taking in large doses for a multitude of reasons.
I would recommend this book. I would definitely recommend this book despite my caveats.
NAMES IN THIS BOOK
STORY ONE: LIBERATION DAY
Here is what I wish to say, dearest one, trapped as I am on this desolate, godless hillside, surrounded by demons who wish to destroy me: because I have known such a moment with you (the firelight playing across the walls; the dog asleep against the door; the bed shifting beneath us, as if making approving commentary in its own unique language), I may die now, if I must die, knowing I have truly lived. pg. 25
This is an intelligent story with beautiful and dream-like writing. A great 63-page science-fiction novella IMO. One I'd even like to see fleshed-out into a full-blown novel.
I never knew Saunders wrote science-fiction, indeed, this is the first Saunders book I've ever picked up although it's quite possible I've read his short stories in The New Yorker.
Giving you a plot summary seems unwise, it's better to go into this cold. It deals with themes of MINOR SPOILERS
It's also genuinely funny – surprising, since it deals with some heavy and uncomfortable topics. Saunders was making me smile wryly at some points here – quite a feat, I have to give the man props.
The writing is exquisite, if you enjoy not only beautiful writing but stunning ideas that science-fiction usually tackles, this will be for you.
And yet I myself have never participated in such depredations, and "fair play" does not seem like "fair play" when you are the one who, within minutes, is to be made victim of whatever foul, sharp-bladed mischief these fellows intend. pg. 50
RELATED MATERIAL:
Star Trek: First Contact https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117731 1996
12 Monkeys https://www.imdb.com/title/tt01147461995
The East https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1869716 2013
New Species book series by Laurann Dohner https://www.goodreads.com/series/6425...
Hostiles https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5478478 2017
STORY TWO: THE MOM OF BOLD ACTION
This story is so hilarious.
A mom who is a writer is always anxiously hovering over her son and her imagination always runs away with her. She's also married to a fellow moron. Hijinks and wild misunderstandings ensue.
I was laughing out loud so much while reading this, and everyone was staring at me because I was in public.
No one told me Saunders was so fucking funny.
"The Tree Who Longed to Come Inside." Once there was a tree who longed to come inside and sit by the woodstove. He knew this was weird. He knew that his fellow trees were being cruelly burned in there. But gosh, the kitchen looked so inviting. Because of all the hard work the mother had done. Painting and whatnot. When she should have been writing. The smoke pouring out of the chimney smelled so nice. The flesh of his fellow trees, burning, smelled amazing.
Yikes.
Restart. pg. 69
There's also a whole schtick in here about George Washington masturbating as a boy that's hysterical. Great job by Saunders, a laugh out loud story that's also tragic. Most of his stories are a blend of comedy and tragedy.
STORY THREE: LOVE LETTER
This is a story about a future in which the right-wingers turn America into a fascist state. A grandfather is trying to explain to his grandson why he was unable to stop it. The grandson is upset because his friend/girlfriend is being imprisoned by the state for 'not being patriotic,' i.e. not ratting out her friends.
This is a great, prescient, and might be a little too on-the-nose for readers worried about the future of the United States of America.
After a third attempt was rejected, I found myself pulled over, up near the house, for no reason I could discern. The cop (nice guy, just a kid, really) asked what I did all day. Did I have any hobbies? I said no. He said: Some of us heard you like to type. I sat in my car, looking over at his large, pale arm. His face was the face of a kid. His arm, though, was the arm of a man.
How would you know about that? I said.
Have a good night, sir, he said. Stay off the computer.
Good Lord, his stupidity and bulk there in the darkness, the metallic clanking from his belt area, the palpable certainty he seemed to feel regarding his cause, a cause I cannot begin, even at this late date, to get my head around, or view from within, so to speak.
I do not want you anywhere near, or under the sway of, that sort of person, ever. pg. 98
STORY FOUR: A THING AT WORK
Another story with a lot of humor, even though it has a realistic yet sad ending.
One thing I will say negatively about Saunders that comes out in this story is his inability to understand a promiscuous woman and his inability to understand why women make the sexual choices they make. I find this to be a very difficult thing for male writers to grasp, oftentimes (95% of the time), male authors who delve into a female characters mind make her sexual reasoning just ludicrous. They often don't understand female sexuality one bit, ESPECIALLY when they are trying to write about a promiscuous woman's thought processes (which they often are, because they love writing about promiscuous women despite not understanding them in the least bit).
If you can set that aside as a female reader, the rest of the story is great: amusing and tragic, as is Saunders's wont.
Last night this guy on the bus had looked over at her like: Uh, what's with the paper towels, lady? And she'd gone, in her mind: Hey, loser, I stopped by CVS on my way to the bus, up yours, idiot, and by the way, the reason they're not in a bag is, I told the CVS kid no thanks, because of the environment, unlike you, who just now dropped your frigging gum wrapper on the floor, slob.
No, she loved people. People were great. Even that dolt on the bus. He'd probably given her that cranky look because he'd had a bad day, which, given that ugly mug? No surprise there. Who'd marry that? Nah, even ugly folks got married. They married other uglies. It all worked out. Plus, she herself wasn't married. At the moment. She'd been married once. To Norbert. Norb the Orb. That ugly guy on the bus had probably never been married at all. Too ugly. Poor dope. Once the cranky look faded off that dweeb's judgmental puss, he'd gone back to staring out the window, all sad now, like he was thinking back to when he was in grade school and all of life was still ahead of him and he hadn't yet realized how ugly he was. Or maybe he only got ugly later, gradually, in high school. He'd stand at the mirror before gym class, going: What the what? Is my face ever going back to regular?
But no, it wasn't. pg. 110
STORY FIVE: SPARROW
One of the few non-tragic stories in here, about an unlikely pairing.
STORY SIX: GHOUL
Great story, another tragi-comedy. Quite prescient and funny as well. Thought-provoking, as most of Saunders's stories are.
This is another sci-fi, this time about people living underground.
"I just couldn't blow my whistle on you," Amy says, "I've found you cute since we were little."
"I've found you cute, too," I say.
Which I haven't, that much, but it seems like a bad moment to begin violating politeness. pg. 149
STORY SEVEN: MOTHER'S DAY
I hated this story. Really highlights how Saunders does not understand how women feel about sex and why they make the sexual decisions that they do. He's a fine writer in many aspects, but this is one area in which he continually misses the mark.
It's also a hateful and confusing story. The weakest in here, IMO.
STORY EIGHT: ELLIOTT SPENCER
Saunders seems obsessed with the idea of futuristic slavery in which poor people, homeless people sign their lives away to have their minds wiped and live as brainwashed slaves. Not only this story, but also the story/novella LIBERATION DAY deals heavily with these themes Saunders is fixated on.
This is a typical Saunders story in my opinion. Funny and sad. You are laughing reading it, then you are crying reading it. Saunders definitely has a distinct voice, but I think he's a skilled author with some good ideas.
This is about paid protesters, except the hired protesters are actually people who are enslaved and brainwashed. Again, a grim future involving enslaved poor people by Saunders.
When will I DEATH? Might I DEATH alone? Probably yes Little scared about that. I must say
But am not DEATH yet
Not DEAD yet.
Not yet.
And not yet. pg. 225
Very emotional, touching story.
RELATED MATERIAL
A Bum Deal https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8...
Bloodshot imdb.com/title/tt1634106/
Laurann Dohner's New Species series https://www.goodreads.com/series/6425...
STORY NINE: MY HOUSE
Kind of a pointless story, but I understand Saunders is trying to make a statement about life's meaning.
TL;DR
Wonderful book. I was pleasantly surprised. I had never read Saunders before, and from his reputation I never would have guessed that he was so fucking funny. Honestly I laughed out loud while reading this. He's very clever.
Despite that, most of his stories are tragedies and you could say he has a rather grim view of the world. Dark humor seems to be his forte.
He's thought-provoking. Given the nature of the stories and also their degree of heaviness, I would not sit down and read this in one sitting. I would ration them out. You will need time to digest each story and also (no offense to Saunders) take a break from his writing, which can get to be a bit much in high doses.
My only complaints are: his writing gets tiresome if you read too much of it, and b.) his failure to understand women's sexuality. I wish male authors would just skip presenting us with the inside of women's heads in sexual situations if they don't know what the fuck they are talking about. Put women in your story, but maybe don't put a woman's inside perspective on sex unless you know what you are talking about and have had some heterosexual cisgendered females read it and approve it for you. I'd say at least five. Otherwise heterosexual males ideas about what drives women sexually is so fucking weird I just can't deal with it. Yet they are hellbent determined to write about it. Saunders is FAR from the only guilty one on this, though. MANY male authors do this.
Will make you laugh and cry. Skilled writing. Avoid taking in large doses for a multitude of reasons.
I would recommend this book. I would definitely recommend this book despite my caveats.
NAMES IN THIS BOOK
November 21, 2023
I just want to say that history, when it arrives, may not look as you expect, based on the reading of history books. Things in there are always so clear. One knows exactly what one would have done.
Your grandmother and I (and many others) would have had to be more extreme people than we were, during that critical period, to have done whatever it was we should have been doing. Our lives had not prepared us for extremity, to mobilize or be as focused and energized as I can see, in retrospect, we would have needed to be. We were not prepared to drop everything in defense of a system that was, to us, like oxygen: used constantly, never noted. We were spoiled, I think I am trying to say. As were those on the other side: willing to tear it all down because they had been so thoroughly nourished by the vacuous plenty in which we all lived, a bountiful condition that allowed people to thrive and opine and swagger around like kings and queens while remaining ignorant of their own history.
What would you have had me do? What would you have done? I know what you will say: you would have fought. But how? How would you have fought? Would you have called your senator? (In those days, you could still, at least, record your feeble message on a senator’s answering machine without reprisal, but you might as well have been singing or whistling or passing wind into it for all the good it did.) Well, we did that. We called, we wrote letters. Would you have given money to certain people running for office? We did that as well. Would you have marched? For some reason, there were suddenly no marches. Organized a march? Then and now, I did not and do not know how to arrange a march. I was still working full-time. This dental thing had just begun. That rather occupies the mind. You know where we live. Would you have had me drive down to Watsonville and harangue the officials there? They were all in agreement with us. At that time. Would you have armed yourself? I would not and will not, and I do not believe you would either. I hope not. By that, all is lost.
Lincoln in the Bardo is one of the best books I’ve read during the last five years. So, even though I am not a huge fan of short story collections generally, I was very interested in reading George Saunders’ Liberation Day.
The writing is every bit as good as you’d expect from George Saunders, who has the reputation of being the “best short story writer in English.” As with any short story collection, some of the stories hit harder than others, though your mileage may vary on which ones are the standouts. The titular Liberation Day and Ghoul were definitely two of the better ones, with some interesting word building to tell tales that are strange and haunting and a bit heartbreaking. A Thing at Work was meticulously crafted and quite impressive despite literally reminding me of a hundred petty workplace disputes. But for me the star of the collection was Love Letter, in which a grandfather writes to his grandson in the aftermath of a fascist takeover of America. It’s one part advice, one part explanation, one part defense, and full of the impotent frustration and fear so many people feel during our current political era.
Of course, the surely intentional irony of Liberation Day is that almost none of these characters are remotely free. They miss their moment to grab freedom and don’t understand until it’s too late. Or they do the wrong thing—sometimes the smallest wrong thing—and doom themselves. The only story with anything close to a happy ending involves the characters doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. In the end, the overarching lesson seems to be trying to find the right balance between self-awareness, understanding, kindness, and forgiveness, no matter how strange the world around you gets. Good advice, and a good book. And read Love Letter before the book banners find it. Recommended.
July 21, 2022
Surely the best story writer at work. (The speculative stories are just slightly the least of it.) Forget it, competitors.
Thank you to NetGalley for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you to NetGalley for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
June 26, 2022
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Literary Fiction + Short Stories
This is a collection of short stories with different themes but mainly they are dystopian in their nature and somehow fantastical. The book contains a total of nine stories with the first one (Liberation Day) being the longest one (about 28% of the book’s length). The first story was a bit slow for my taste. It is more like a futuristic sci-fi that deals with future slavery. It is narrated from the point of view of one of the victims. It is a grim view of the future and how those people are accepting it and have their priorities totally messed up.
Love Letter was an interesting story. It is written in a letter form in which a grandfather is giving advice to his grandson about all the changes that happened to the society and the political system. By far this one was my favorite in the collection.
Some of the stories are thought-provoking and others are just forgettable. I feel all this will depend on your personal taste and preferences. The author has done a fine job in giving the needed atmosphere to all of them. The problem is that the atmosphere alone will not make them all work for you. This is not my first book by George Saunders, I read Lincoln in the Bardo a few years ago and had some problems with it besides the format of the book. The stories in Liberation Day are interesting as ideas but the actual execution of each can be a hit or miss from one person to another.
Many thanks to the publisher Random House Publishing Group - Random House, and NetGalley for providing me with an advance reader copy of this book.
Genre: Literary Fiction + Short Stories
This is a collection of short stories with different themes but mainly they are dystopian in their nature and somehow fantastical. The book contains a total of nine stories with the first one (Liberation Day) being the longest one (about 28% of the book’s length). The first story was a bit slow for my taste. It is more like a futuristic sci-fi that deals with future slavery. It is narrated from the point of view of one of the victims. It is a grim view of the future and how those people are accepting it and have their priorities totally messed up.
Love Letter was an interesting story. It is written in a letter form in which a grandfather is giving advice to his grandson about all the changes that happened to the society and the political system. By far this one was my favorite in the collection.
Some of the stories are thought-provoking and others are just forgettable. I feel all this will depend on your personal taste and preferences. The author has done a fine job in giving the needed atmosphere to all of them. The problem is that the atmosphere alone will not make them all work for you. This is not my first book by George Saunders, I read Lincoln in the Bardo a few years ago and had some problems with it besides the format of the book. The stories in Liberation Day are interesting as ideas but the actual execution of each can be a hit or miss from one person to another.
Many thanks to the publisher Random House Publishing Group - Random House, and NetGalley for providing me with an advance reader copy of this book.
June 29, 2022
Nine short stories in this new collection coming from George Saunders in October. I'm already a fan, and these just fix me more firmly. There are three speculative stories spaced throughout in which characters have their eyes opened to what their reality actually is. The others are perhaps smaller stories, but no lesser for that: a mother grappling with guilt, a grandfather writing to his grandson about the state of America, colleagues back biting, two women remembering one man. Highly recommended.
May 7, 2023
Ten years ago, I absolutely loved Saunders’s collection Tenth of December. Honestly, I have no idea if Saunders has changed or if I have. All of these stories are written in the same irritating, sometimes arch, sometimes clipped tone. There are moments of insight and even fascination, but not enough to keep the stories feeling fresh. A lot of the stories circle around a certain obsessive, anxious self-justification. In a sense, this mode fits well with the underlying incoherence of the world-building. It is not hard to imagine a more generous reading of this pairing—an incoherent world and the endless self-justification it inspires—as masterful. But I can't shake the thought that it's just lazy.
The people-as-puppets stories—Liberation Day and Elliot Spencer—are too weird to be uninteresting, but they don’t quite work, either. (And this, I’m sure, Saunders has done better before.) The more modest stories are stronger. Sparrow and My House, both shorter pieces, are lovely. And the ending of Mother's Day is fantastic. But on the whole, I remain unmoved.
To be fair, the volume suffered for the high expectations I came in with. But Saunders is being sold to us as the greatest short story writer of our time, and I'm beginning to think it's a bill of a goods. Or, perhaps, just further evidence that genre fiction is in far healthier shape than literary fiction—pick up any issue of Asimov’s or Clarkesworld and you’ll find at least one story far better than any here.
The people-as-puppets stories—Liberation Day and Elliot Spencer—are too weird to be uninteresting, but they don’t quite work, either. (And this, I’m sure, Saunders has done better before.) The more modest stories are stronger. Sparrow and My House, both shorter pieces, are lovely. And the ending of Mother's Day is fantastic. But on the whole, I remain unmoved.
To be fair, the volume suffered for the high expectations I came in with. But Saunders is being sold to us as the greatest short story writer of our time, and I'm beginning to think it's a bill of a goods. Or, perhaps, just further evidence that genre fiction is in far healthier shape than literary fiction—pick up any issue of Asimov’s or Clarkesworld and you’ll find at least one story far better than any here.
November 2, 2022
3.5, rounded up. This is not Saunders' strongest collection of short stories, and it's certainly his most uneven in both tone and quality.
In the three longer stories-- the title story, "Ghoul," and "Elliott Spencer," I sensed creative exhaustion and crushing despair. Or more charitably, Saunders was following his standard recipe from earlier stories like "Escape from Spiderhead" and "CommComm": plunge a psychologically and/or neurologically and/or pharmacologically and/or linguistically damaged first-person narrator into a whacked-out high-concept dystopian scenario that parodies neoliberal corporate wage slavery. Reading these, I realized that the concentrated insanity of the real world has overtaken the concentrated fictional insanity of Saunders-land.
Most of the other stories, like "The Mom of Bold Action," "A Thing at Work," "Mother's Day," and "My House" are inner soliloquies of contemporary Americans caught in spirals of narcissistic obsession, engaged in elaborate games of self-representation in which they are characterologically incapable of basic empathy. I found sentimentality creeping into "Love Letter," a mawkish confession from an old man who failed (just like everyone else) to stop America's slippery slope into fascism.
I am a longtime Saunders fan, and rate Lincoln in the Bardo as a contender for Great American Novel of the 21st Century. But I would have enjoyed reading these individually, spread out over a year, rather than over three or four evenings.
In the three longer stories-- the title story, "Ghoul," and "Elliott Spencer," I sensed creative exhaustion and crushing despair. Or more charitably, Saunders was following his standard recipe from earlier stories like "Escape from Spiderhead" and "CommComm": plunge a psychologically and/or neurologically and/or pharmacologically and/or linguistically damaged first-person narrator into a whacked-out high-concept dystopian scenario that parodies neoliberal corporate wage slavery. Reading these, I realized that the concentrated insanity of the real world has overtaken the concentrated fictional insanity of Saunders-land.
Most of the other stories, like "The Mom of Bold Action," "A Thing at Work," "Mother's Day," and "My House" are inner soliloquies of contemporary Americans caught in spirals of narcissistic obsession, engaged in elaborate games of self-representation in which they are characterologically incapable of basic empathy. I found sentimentality creeping into "Love Letter," a mawkish confession from an old man who failed (just like everyone else) to stop America's slippery slope into fascism.
I am a longtime Saunders fan, and rate Lincoln in the Bardo as a contender for Great American Novel of the 21st Century. But I would have enjoyed reading these individually, spread out over a year, rather than over three or four evenings.
November 25, 2022
I had a rollercoaster experience with this new collection of short stories by George Saunders.
This is the author's first collection since 2013's Tenth of December and I was curious how the eternal optimist might deal with all that has occurred since that time. Possibly the closest we get to George doing overt political commentary is to be found in Love Letter
Because this destruction was emanating from such an inept source, who seemed ( at that time ) merely comically thuggish, ... because every day he/they burst through some new gate of propriety, we soon found that no genuine outrage was available to us anymore
Every story on some level is asking you to exercise your empathy, to view things from multiple points of view. In some ways, these stories read like modern parables. Saunders likes to pose little moral conundrums - often centred around how to avoid a hoard of your peers not kicking you to death for some infringement.
It was hard for me to overcome just how much I enjoyed the title story Liberation Day . A speculative story which reminded me of the human garden ornaments of The Semplica-Girl Diaries but merges in the history of Custer's Last Stand. For me, this story had everything and I was bereft when it ended. I don't know if I really gave another story the chance to wow me after that, although the nightmarish office politics of A Thing At Work came close.
There is plenty here for long-time readers of Saunder's to enjoy and I think it's a collection that would benefit from a second reading. However, my initial feeling of slight disappointment remains and I wonder if that is my bias towards novels showing through.
This is the author's first collection since 2013's Tenth of December and I was curious how the eternal optimist might deal with all that has occurred since that time. Possibly the closest we get to George doing overt political commentary is to be found in Love Letter
Because this destruction was emanating from such an inept source, who seemed ( at that time ) merely comically thuggish, ... because every day he/they burst through some new gate of propriety, we soon found that no genuine outrage was available to us anymore
Every story on some level is asking you to exercise your empathy, to view things from multiple points of view. In some ways, these stories read like modern parables. Saunders likes to pose little moral conundrums - often centred around how to avoid a hoard of your peers not kicking you to death for some infringement.
It was hard for me to overcome just how much I enjoyed the title story Liberation Day . A speculative story which reminded me of the human garden ornaments of The Semplica-Girl Diaries but merges in the history of Custer's Last Stand. For me, this story had everything and I was bereft when it ended. I don't know if I really gave another story the chance to wow me after that, although the nightmarish office politics of A Thing At Work came close.
There is plenty here for long-time readers of Saunder's to enjoy and I think it's a collection that would benefit from a second reading. However, my initial feeling of slight disappointment remains and I wonder if that is my bias towards novels showing through.
December 15, 2023
Brilliant. This year has been the year of really good short story collections for me and this was no exception. Nearly all of these stories were 5 stars for me, not only for their ingenuity but also the incredibly sharp writing. Saunders doesn't sacrifice clarity for the concept; he somehow manages both and it hits so hard.
The opening title story is bizarre (and I mean that in the best way possible), and it just continues to propel you forward to a stunning ending. I also loved "The Mom of Bold Action," "Sparrow," "Ghoul" and "Elliott Spencer." But really every single story was great.
When you start reading a George Saunders story you really have to just go with it. He drops you right in then begins to give you context clues to see what's going on, what world we are in, who is speaking, etc. And that discovery is the fun of his stories along with using these unique world and sharp characters to discuss big themes in a snarky but approachable way. I loved it!
The opening title story is bizarre (and I mean that in the best way possible), and it just continues to propel you forward to a stunning ending. I also loved "The Mom of Bold Action," "Sparrow," "Ghoul" and "Elliott Spencer." But really every single story was great.
When you start reading a George Saunders story you really have to just go with it. He drops you right in then begins to give you context clues to see what's going on, what world we are in, who is speaking, etc. And that discovery is the fun of his stories along with using these unique world and sharp characters to discuss big themes in a snarky but approachable way. I loved it!
February 2, 2023
I have long been a fan of short stories. While I have only read one other short-story collection by George Saunders, Tenth of December, I consider him, as many do, very talented in this form. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain he provides some insight into his writing process, which I enjoyed learning about.
In this collection George Saunders demonstrates the breadth of his creativity. There are several alternate future stories in the collection where the world looks very different from the one we live in today. Even more frightening, these alternate futures seem a reasonable projection forward of our technological capabilities. However, most of the nine stories in the collection describe situations or events that likely fit within many readers’ everyday view of life, with characters not dissimilar from people we might know.
One thing I don’t get with the characters in George Saunders’ stories is a strong emotional connection. Instead, I feel like I am standing some distance away, observing. I didn’t find that to be a negative, but it was a consistent feeling. In the title story and the first in the collection, Liberation Day, which is 65 pages in length, we get a story within a story: a very vivid and emotional retelling of Custer’s Last Stand from multiple perspectives, which does not detract from the primary story. My favorite, though, was Love Letter; ten pages in length, a grandfather has written a letter carefully warning his grandson about what he should and should not do in a world where our democracy in the United States is no longer what it once was. Very concisely, George Saunders addresses a topic of great interest in recent years and one that has caused tremendous anxiety for some.
I enjoyed all these stories. Each of them made me pause and ponder. While I don’t think George Saunders’s short stories will appeal to everyone (what does?), I do think he is worth trying in order to discover if his stories grab ahold of you.
In this collection George Saunders demonstrates the breadth of his creativity. There are several alternate future stories in the collection where the world looks very different from the one we live in today. Even more frightening, these alternate futures seem a reasonable projection forward of our technological capabilities. However, most of the nine stories in the collection describe situations or events that likely fit within many readers’ everyday view of life, with characters not dissimilar from people we might know.
One thing I don’t get with the characters in George Saunders’ stories is a strong emotional connection. Instead, I feel like I am standing some distance away, observing. I didn’t find that to be a negative, but it was a consistent feeling. In the title story and the first in the collection, Liberation Day, which is 65 pages in length, we get a story within a story: a very vivid and emotional retelling of Custer’s Last Stand from multiple perspectives, which does not detract from the primary story. My favorite, though, was Love Letter; ten pages in length, a grandfather has written a letter carefully warning his grandson about what he should and should not do in a world where our democracy in the United States is no longer what it once was. Very concisely, George Saunders addresses a topic of great interest in recent years and one that has caused tremendous anxiety for some.
I enjoyed all these stories. Each of them made me pause and ponder. While I don’t think George Saunders’s short stories will appeal to everyone (what does?), I do think he is worth trying in order to discover if his stories grab ahold of you.
June 6, 2022
It's always a joy when something new from George Saunders comes my way. Here, after a Booker winner (Lincoln in the Bardo) and a master class in short story technique and appreciation (A Swim in a Pond in the Rain), Saunders presents the form that he excels in -- nine short stories. Although I must admit to preferring the more realistic in the collection as opposed to the experimental and dystopian, I still found each and every one of them worthy of reading at least twice, first for the narrative flow and next for the appreciation of technique. When I attended an event surrounding publication of The Tenth of December, almost 10 years ago, I remember his sharing one of his secrets. That of economy of expression. And he displays that in these stories. Other early readers have parsed the stories and been more explicit in the descriptions, so I'll not list details. Only to say that the titular story made me ache, Mother's Day made me laugh, and Love Letter made me go back and read it again. I'll revisit these stories, much as I revisit those of Alice Munro and Lucia Berlin. When you're the best, it's for a reason.
January 14, 2023
I am not a huge fan of short stories, but I loved “Lincoln in the Bardo” so much that I have tried some of the author’s short stories. One of my problems with short story collections is the unevenness of the selection. This book is no exception.
“Liberation Day” was one of my favorites, a long, strange dystopian story featuring erased memories (this also comes up in “Elliott Spencer”, my least favorite story). For a long time I thought the characters were androids. I also liked “Love Letter”, written in the form of a letter from a grandfather to his grandson. This is the most overtly political of the stories. Some people think that this is also dystopian. I think it is very much of the moment as it describes the present day normalization of the abhorrent.”Sparrow” and “My House” were very slight and felt like filler.
I really hopes the author writes another novel, because I definitely don’t feel the same magic from his short stories.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
“Liberation Day” was one of my favorites, a long, strange dystopian story featuring erased memories (this also comes up in “Elliott Spencer”, my least favorite story). For a long time I thought the characters were androids. I also liked “Love Letter”, written in the form of a letter from a grandfather to his grandson. This is the most overtly political of the stories. Some people think that this is also dystopian. I think it is very much of the moment as it describes the present day normalization of the abhorrent.”Sparrow” and “My House” were very slight and felt like filler.
I really hopes the author writes another novel, because I definitely don’t feel the same magic from his short stories.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
September 21, 2022
Liberation Day is the latest collection from the weird and colourful mind of George Saunders. And like any of his short story collections, it contains tales that will delight readers and some that might leave them scratching their heads.
Elliott Spencer definitely sits in the latter camp. Its characters are reprogrammed to become political protesters. They have their memory wiped and are retaught language, which makes their speech quite difficult to decipher. And I'm not sure it's quite worth the effort - I didn't get a lot out of that particular story. Another one I struggled with was Ghoul - a tale of a dystopian society with some strange laws and customs.
But there were others I thoroughly enjoyed. The title story is a very unsettling affair in which a wealthy man recreates battle scenes using actors and singers whose minds have been erased. A Thing At Work is a funny and strangely compelling account of an office rivalry between two very different women that gets way out of hand. And Mother's Day is a fascinating tale of two mothers who disapprove of the other's parenting skills while failing to see the shortcomings of their own.
A mixed bag overall, to be sure. The stories that I admired were funny and insightful, taking me inside the minds of characters that felt totally real. But even the ones that didn't work left me appreciative of the imagination and effort involved. Reading George Saunders is never boring - I can't wait to see what that wonderful brain comes up with next.
Elliott Spencer definitely sits in the latter camp. Its characters are reprogrammed to become political protesters. They have their memory wiped and are retaught language, which makes their speech quite difficult to decipher. And I'm not sure it's quite worth the effort - I didn't get a lot out of that particular story. Another one I struggled with was Ghoul - a tale of a dystopian society with some strange laws and customs.
But there were others I thoroughly enjoyed. The title story is a very unsettling affair in which a wealthy man recreates battle scenes using actors and singers whose minds have been erased. A Thing At Work is a funny and strangely compelling account of an office rivalry between two very different women that gets way out of hand. And Mother's Day is a fascinating tale of two mothers who disapprove of the other's parenting skills while failing to see the shortcomings of their own.
A mixed bag overall, to be sure. The stories that I admired were funny and insightful, taking me inside the minds of characters that felt totally real. But even the ones that didn't work left me appreciative of the imagination and effort involved. Reading George Saunders is never boring - I can't wait to see what that wonderful brain comes up with next.
September 30, 2022
Prepare to be blown away by this new short story collection by George Saunders which shock, delight and entertain from first to last. Some are speculative in scope, some get down and dirty in the trenches of human relationships and explore our sense of ethics and justice. I have several favorites including Love Letter, a grandfather's warning letter to his grandson, and Elliott Spencer, exploring the power of a man's memories--but all of the stories are powerful and well-written.
I received an arc of this new collection from the author and publisher via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.
I received an arc of this new collection from the author and publisher via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are my own.
October 27, 2022
A new book from George Saunders is always a treat, and for me this did not disappoint. While it does trod some of the same ground that his stories have in the past, to me that's not a bad thing. And his trademark compassion and kindness are still on full display, even if many of his characters seem more trapped than ever by the selfishness, thoughtlessness, and cruelty so often present in modern life.
I can see myself returning to several of these stories again and again. Some particular favorites:
The Mom of Bold Action
Love Letter
Mother's Day
I can see myself returning to several of these stories again and again. Some particular favorites:
The Mom of Bold Action
Love Letter
Mother's Day
February 3, 2023
Just showing off at this point.
March 9, 2023
George Saunders, like blue cheese, is an acquired taste. But, again like the cheese, it's hard to settle for anything less after experiencing the sharp, pungent flavour and blue-veins that run through Saunders' prose.
I, uh, think I'm still talking about a short story collection and not a charcuterie board.
In any case, Liberation Day was a thoroughly enjoyable collection. As with all of Saunders' stories, I spent a good amount of my time finding my footing in the worlds and with the characters he presents. The narrators, their environment, and even the prose by which their thoughts are conveyed are subject to the shifting whims of Saunders. Where one story may feel more straightforward, the next may feel like experimental poetry.
I know this is going to turn a lot of people off, but when Saunders is writing I feel like he leaves pretension at the door. Instead of just doing something odd with language for the sake of standing out in a crowd, it oftentimes reflects the inner life of the characters or the situations in which they are found. In a lesser author's hands this turns into an exhibit at the literary sideshow: look at the punctuation! Such neologisms, etc. With Saunders, the words and the lattice they build convey a depth of emotion and understanding that other authors spend hundreds of pages trying to convey.
Full disclosure: I know that Saunders doesn't click for everyone. I've suggested his collections to friends and family who've thrown up their hands and cursed my recommendations for being too literary, too pretentious, and too smart for their own good. I get that, truly I do! BUT, for me and lots of other readers, Saunders builds a kind of empathy and understanding that is rarely found in other novels.
So, give it a go. Worst case scenario: it's only 230 pages!
I, uh, think I'm still talking about a short story collection and not a charcuterie board.
In any case, Liberation Day was a thoroughly enjoyable collection. As with all of Saunders' stories, I spent a good amount of my time finding my footing in the worlds and with the characters he presents. The narrators, their environment, and even the prose by which their thoughts are conveyed are subject to the shifting whims of Saunders. Where one story may feel more straightforward, the next may feel like experimental poetry.
I know this is going to turn a lot of people off, but when Saunders is writing I feel like he leaves pretension at the door. Instead of just doing something odd with language for the sake of standing out in a crowd, it oftentimes reflects the inner life of the characters or the situations in which they are found. In a lesser author's hands this turns into an exhibit at the literary sideshow: look at the punctuation! Such neologisms, etc. With Saunders, the words and the lattice they build convey a depth of emotion and understanding that other authors spend hundreds of pages trying to convey.
Full disclosure: I know that Saunders doesn't click for everyone. I've suggested his collections to friends and family who've thrown up their hands and cursed my recommendations for being too literary, too pretentious, and too smart for their own good. I get that, truly I do! BUT, for me and lots of other readers, Saunders builds a kind of empathy and understanding that is rarely found in other novels.
So, give it a go. Worst case scenario: it's only 230 pages!
December 2, 2022
George Saunders is great and I've really enjoyed a lot of his past work (especially Lincoln in the Bardo), but his newest collection of short stories seems particularly uninspired to me. A lot of the topics are pulled straight from the news and are very much "of the current day" -- liberating people from cruel leadership, coming to terms with different political views, the strong preying on the vulnerable, what it means to be good in a bad world, etc etc. All of this is well and good and maybe I'm in a mood or something, but I'm just kind of tired of these narratives at this point. And wrapping these topics up in quasi-sci-fi or "near future" settings while piling on the allegories isn't doing it for me.
Maybe the way I read this was all wrong too. I spent most of the time trying to pin down the allegory in each story, which was a pretty big distraction. And then after a while, each story started to take on the same kind of formula: throw reader in strange world with weird lingo, slowly reveal more details, hook in reader with empathetic character, allegory starts to reveal itself, tragic ending, we all learn a valuable lesson, the end.
Pretty cynical take, I know. But I don't recall Saunders' past work being this obvious, and nothing really stood out to me here. His writing style is certainly very modern and clever and everything; I just started to get bored.
This is a lot of negative words to describe a collection I still found pretty readable and gave three stars, but I think I just expected more here. If you're new to Saunders, I would start elsewhere.
Maybe the way I read this was all wrong too. I spent most of the time trying to pin down the allegory in each story, which was a pretty big distraction. And then after a while, each story started to take on the same kind of formula: throw reader in strange world with weird lingo, slowly reveal more details, hook in reader with empathetic character, allegory starts to reveal itself, tragic ending, we all learn a valuable lesson, the end.
Pretty cynical take, I know. But I don't recall Saunders' past work being this obvious, and nothing really stood out to me here. His writing style is certainly very modern and clever and everything; I just started to get bored.
This is a lot of negative words to describe a collection I still found pretty readable and gave three stars, but I think I just expected more here. If you're new to Saunders, I would start elsewhere.
November 8, 2022
A couple of things to start -- I generally do not listen to short stories on audio, but did so here because of the all star cast of narrators --Tina Fey, Jack McBrayer, Jenny Slate and more -- and am glad I did. I think they added a lot and I recommend the audio. Secondly, I am a bit of a George Saunders fangirl so it surprises me to 4 star this, but here we are. It would be a 4.5 if that were a GR option.
I generally review each story in a collection separately, but I am not going to do that here, because things I liked and the things I did not like quite as much were consistent from story to story. I am going to tackle it all. One thing I love about Saunders is that without being pedantic or saccharine he is always deeply moral and breathtakingly decent in the way he approaches characters and situations even when he is downright caustic. He respects the characters, they are never one-note. We always see the characters so fully, we can question their actions, but we never question their humanity. That is great writing. So it was surprising to me in this collection to read stories where it felt like Saunders was putting the POINT before the characters -- and the characters seemed emblematic of a certain type of person outside the pages and George has stuff to say. Look, Saunders is not the only person in America whose heart has been broken over and over in the last ten years. I, and I suspect essentially all his readers, are right there with him. But this is why I need him, I need him to use his breathtaking talent to help me remember shared aspects of being human, to help me find empathy for people I find myself loathing in a blanket sort of way. He can make fun of them and still not hate them, and that helps me do the same. For illustration, I will note A Mom of Bold Action (brilliantly narrated by Tina Fey.) Saunders unites us with our shared irrationality when it comes to protecting our kids, the truth of what we give up to parent in a certain way. That was great until there was a very minor perceived threat to the MCs tween and Saunders turned that main character into a ridiculous right wing suburban mom, more concerned with being perceived as a supermom, with maintaining some 1950's picture of a family than with basic humanity, eventually reducing morality to something entirely transactional. It is a very good story, it is a funny story, and it is an observant story, from another writer would have had me raving all over the place, but from Saunders it did not feel as satisfying. Don't get me wrong -- it moved it from a 5 to a 4.5, but still. Additionally there were a couple stories here that I thought were too on the nose -- Love Letter for sure fits in that box - it was weirdly earnest. I don't know what he was thinking. At least it is short.
Some of the stories were amazing - funny and sad and trenchant as I have come to expect from this writer. A Thing at Work was just so good, and Edi Patterson's narration made it even better. Ghoul felt like old Saunders work and I liked it very much. The title story (and the longest by far) Liberation Day also felt like old Saunders, but with a little twist I found quite satisfying (I found the "love story" within the larger story to be simultaneously one of the saddest and one of the funniest things Saunders has written.)
All in all as a collection this is a high 4 and a must read. When Saunders is good, there is no one better, and more often than not he is very very good here.
I generally review each story in a collection separately, but I am not going to do that here, because things I liked and the things I did not like quite as much were consistent from story to story. I am going to tackle it all. One thing I love about Saunders is that without being pedantic or saccharine he is always deeply moral and breathtakingly decent in the way he approaches characters and situations even when he is downright caustic. He respects the characters, they are never one-note. We always see the characters so fully, we can question their actions, but we never question their humanity. That is great writing. So it was surprising to me in this collection to read stories where it felt like Saunders was putting the POINT before the characters -- and the characters seemed emblematic of a certain type of person outside the pages and George has stuff to say. Look, Saunders is not the only person in America whose heart has been broken over and over in the last ten years. I, and I suspect essentially all his readers, are right there with him. But this is why I need him, I need him to use his breathtaking talent to help me remember shared aspects of being human, to help me find empathy for people I find myself loathing in a blanket sort of way. He can make fun of them and still not hate them, and that helps me do the same. For illustration, I will note A Mom of Bold Action (brilliantly narrated by Tina Fey.) Saunders unites us with our shared irrationality when it comes to protecting our kids, the truth of what we give up to parent in a certain way. That was great until there was a very minor perceived threat to the MCs tween and Saunders turned that main character into a ridiculous right wing suburban mom, more concerned with being perceived as a supermom, with maintaining some 1950's picture of a family than with basic humanity, eventually reducing morality to something entirely transactional. It is a very good story, it is a funny story, and it is an observant story, from another writer would have had me raving all over the place, but from Saunders it did not feel as satisfying. Don't get me wrong -- it moved it from a 5 to a 4.5, but still. Additionally there were a couple stories here that I thought were too on the nose -- Love Letter for sure fits in that box - it was weirdly earnest. I don't know what he was thinking. At least it is short.
Some of the stories were amazing - funny and sad and trenchant as I have come to expect from this writer. A Thing at Work was just so good, and Edi Patterson's narration made it even better. Ghoul felt like old Saunders work and I liked it very much. The title story (and the longest by far) Liberation Day also felt like old Saunders, but with a little twist I found quite satisfying (I found the "love story" within the larger story to be simultaneously one of the saddest and one of the funniest things Saunders has written.)
All in all as a collection this is a high 4 and a must read. When Saunders is good, there is no one better, and more often than not he is very very good here.
May 5, 2022
I’ve really missed Saunders’ short story collections, his groupings of sickly sweet tales that go down so deceptively quick and easy that you get gassy from all the emotions you just chugged. Snobbishly, I was quite well-that-was-cool’d by LINCOLN IN THE BARDO and ELLIOTT SPENCER (2019 New Yorker piece [is it snobbishly or snobbingly?], also here in LIBDAY) as I’m always glad to see my faves going to town with experimentation. Obsessively, SWIM IN A POND had me jumping up and down as it granted me E tickets to his brainpark! But worriedly, I was getting a little, uh, worried that he had indefinitely moved on from short story collections. It’s classic fanboy “why-isn’t-he-doing-the-thing-I-like-that-he-did-but-doing-it-now-and-all-the-time-the-way-I-like-it” gerbage that I try to keep at bay, but is always just around the corner of Verbal Drive and Diarrhea Lane. Well, with LIBDAY, Saunders threw a pie in that fanboy’s face, did a Daffy Duck woohoo-woohoo and disappeared in a Saunders-shaped poof of smoke. Piefaced and glowing, I witnessed, in one sitting (hovering by the end), all those beloved Saundersisms unleashed, with every flavor and range of emotion given to and taken from me-the-reader. Patience (fanboy kryptonite) proves worth-it in the end. This is a wonderful collection and, pleasantly sated, this obsessive worrywart snob looks forward to any and all that GS holds for the future.
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