Liberation Day by George Saunders
With a superb collection that probes concepts of power, ethics, and justice and gets to the very heart of what it means to live in a community with our fellow humans, the “greatest short-story writer in English” (Time) returns. Here is a collection of prismatic, powerful stories that embrace joy and misery, oppression and revolution, odd imagination and brutal reality. Saunders continues to challenge and surprise with his characteristic prose—wickedly humorous, unsentimental, and perfectly tuned.
Liberation Day by George Saunders
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In the middle of a dystopian political situation in the (not too distant, all too believable) future, “Love Letter” is a touching letter from a grandfather to a grandson that serves as a gentle reminder of our duties to our beliefs, ourselves, and one another. “Ghoul” is set in a Colorado underground theme park with a Hell-themed area, and it centres on the escapades of a morally complex but lonely man named Brian who starts to doubt everything he previously took for granted about reality. In the middle of a thunderstorm, two women who shared a love for the same man have an existential reckoning on “Mother’s Day.”
Our 89-year-old protagonist in “Elliott Spencer” discovers that he has been brainwashed and that his memory has been “scraped”; he is a victim of a plot in which weak, disadvantaged people are reprogrammed and used as political demonstrators. And in just seven pages, “My House” addresses the haunting essence of unrealized hopes and the inevitable nature of decay.
These nine provocative, insightful, and crucial tales provide a case for seeing the world with the same kindness and attentiveness Saunders does, even in the most ridiculous situations.
Saunders takes us to a futuristic police state and a theme park with a hell theme in Liberation Day, which sees him return to his earliest literary love, the short story. It’s challenging to find a better short story author, one whose works stick with you and become part of you the way his do. He delivers some excellent, enduring, and outrageously gorgeous stories here.
