Author(s): George Saunders

General Fiction

The first short story collection in ten years from the Man Booker Prize-winning, New York Times-bestselling author of Lincoln in the Bardo, MacArthur genius and Booker Prize-winner. George Saunders returns with a collection of short stories that make sense of our increasingly troubled world 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.

MATILDA BOOKSHOP REVIEW

Saunders is an unparalleled master of the short-story form and this latest collection does not disappoint. These nine stories explore a deeply divided and fractured society with all of his trademark humanity, wit and inventiveness. Every so often I literally gasped at both the sheer audacity of his imagination and his ambition for what fiction can achieve. This is wild writing and will leave you breathless. Gavin