Turning the first page of a George Saunders’ Liberation Day is like opening a door to the cavernous expanse of a limitless imagination. But don’t think that everything is random – there’s a light guiding you to a definite destination and it’s precise, powerful and often pointedly political.
‘Liberation Day’ is the first in this series of nine short stories. Despite the title, there’s not much freedom in evidence. There are intricate storylines running in parallel, which then intersect. It’s a speculative fiction story, meshing the imagined future and historical events … and really deserves a review of its own.
An unlimited imagination is quite different to an overactive one. Just ask the budding writer and protective mother in ‘The Mom of Bold Things’. ‘Love Letter’ is deeply, overtly political. This is the USA as imagined in the near future, with democracy shredded. ‘A Thing at Work’ features internal monologues with switching perspectives, allowing a deep dive into character where even the smallest incidental asides have meaning.
‘Ghouls’ sees Saunders’ imagination in hyperdrive. This is the story of a closed community and arbitrary rules. This and ‘Mother’s Day’ (another with internal monologues) has echoes of Lincoln in the Bardo. ‘Elliot Spencer’ is horrifyingly political. It has shades of a post-truth USA and it wouldn’t surprise if it were already happening.
It doesn’t matter if it’s short- or long-form, fiction or non-fiction, if it has George Saunders, name attached to it, read it. It will always be outstanding. This is a writer in complete control of his prodigious talent.
Reviewed by Bob Moore
ABOUT GEORGE SAUNDERS
George Saunders is the author of twelve books, including Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the 2017 Man Booker Prize for best work of fiction in English, and was a finalist for the Golden Man Booker, in which one Booker winner was selected to represent each decade, from the fifty years since the Prize’s inception. The audiobook for Lincoln in the Bardo, which featured a cast of 166 actors, was the 2018 Audie Award for best audiobook.
The short story collection Tenth of December was a finalist for the National Book Award, and won the inaugural Folio Prize in 2013 (for the best work of fiction in English) and the Story Prize (best short story collection).
He has received MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships, the PEN/Malamud Prize for excellence in the short story, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2013, he was named one of the world’s 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine.
He was born in Amarillo, Texas and raised in Oak Forest, Illinois. He has a degree in Geophysics from the Colorado School of Mines and has worked as a geophysical prospector in Indonesia, a roofer in Chicago, a doorman in Beverly Hills, and a technical writer in Rochester, New York. He has taught, since 1997, in the Creative Writing Program at Syracuse University
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