“CivilWarLand in Bad Decline” by George Saunders – $11.20
The newest short story collection from George Saunders, “Tenth of December
Reviewers often call Saunders “hilarious.” The girl who first recommended him to me said he was the funniest writer she had ever read. I never really think of him as hilarious. Harrowing is more like it. George Saunders is the most harrowing writer I have ever read.
It’s not that Saunders isn’t funny, he is. But that is never the feature that stands out to me. His stories are funny and heartbreaking the way that life is. Told from the first-person perspective, Saunders directly confronts the darkest aspects of life. Reading him, you experience crushing personal failures, dreadful violence, and the myriad indignities of lives that don’t quite measure up. And this is where the humor, beauty, and heroism come in. Sometimes you have to laugh at the absurdity of it all, see past the coldness and the hardness, to keep from crying.
These stories are full of fantastic elements, often set in dingy versions of the near future, with ghosts, mutants, and advanced technologies that are still kind of lousy in the way so much consumer technology is today. In the title story, the narrator works as a low-level employee in a theme park, CivilWarLand, with an increasing teen gang problem, an armed lunatic set loose to deal with them, and, for good measure, the ghosts of a family brutally murdered by their father in the 1800s. The premise is comic and weird, but as always, Saunders has the gift to wring real emotion from it.
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I almost blipped past here as I’m not a big history reader (although I probably should be), and the post title kida threw my groggy self upon initial glance. Man am I so glad I paused a few and read the post in full. I will most certainly look into this tome and probably the “Tenth of December” too. I thought that one had been in my radar as of late, and I just checked a few recent magazine issues, and voila! It was mentioned in an article/review/recommendation on some new short story collections in the February issue of *Esquire*, by Benjamin Percy: “In Celebration of the Short Story.” You may wish to check that short article out too, Ben, if you haven’t already.
I may just snatch all their recommendations up, along with the additional *CivilWarLand* one you have recommended here. Thanks for the *nudge*!
I read this book about a decade ago in high school. I don’t remember much of what I read in high school. This is an exception (and for good reason). If you enjoy satire, you’ll enjoy this very much.
Gotta give another +1 for Saunders. He’s probably the most original, edgy American short story writer going now. Though there are several others who are close, few have the same deep understanding of humanity he does. You really “feel” his stories, not just read them.