Please note the pages on this book have been produced with bevelled or rough edge to create an old style look. The publisher has deliberately chosen to produce the book this way.
Product Description
Instantly astounding and enduringly haunting, one of America's greatest writers most dazzling work yet.
From the undisputed master of the short story, George Saunders, comes a dazzling and disturbing new collection. His most wryly hilarious work to date, Tenth of December illuminates human experience and explores figures lost in a labyrinth of troubling preoccupations.
A family member recollects a backyard pole dressed for all occasions; Divisional Director Todd Birnie sends round a memo to employees he thinks need some inspiration; Jeff faces horrifying ultimatums and the prospect of Darkenfloxx(TM) in some unusual drug trials; and in an auction of local celebrities Al Roosten hides his own internal monologue behind a winning smile that he hopes will make him popular. Although, as a young boy discovers, sometimes the voices fade and all you are left with is a frozen hill on a cold day in December...
With dark visions of the future riffing against ghosts of the past and the ever-settling present, Tenth of December sings with astonishing charm and intensity, and re-affirms Saunders as one of our greatest living storytellers.
About the Author
At one point a geophysical engineer, MacArthur Fellowship winner George Saunders is an acclaimed writer of short stories, essays, novellas and children's books. His work includes the story collections CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, a finalist for the 2006 PEN/Hemingway Award, Pastoralia and In Persuasion Nation, one of only three finalists for The Story Prize in 2006. He has also won prizes for his bestselling children's book The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip and has, most recently, written a book of essays entitled The Braindead Megaphone. He currently teaches Creative Writing at Syracuse University, New York, and writes regularly for GQ, Harper's and The New Yorker, who in 2002 named him one of the 'Best Writers Under 40'. He lives in New York with his family.
Industry Reviews
Praise for Tenth of December "The best book you'll read this year."--The New York Times Magazine
"A feat of inventiveness . . . This eclectic collection never ceases to delight with its at times absurd, surreal, and darkly humorous look at very serious subjects. . . . George Saunders makes you feel as though you are reading fiction for the first time."--Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner
"The best short-story writer in English--not 'one of, ' not 'arguably, ' but the Best."--Mary Karr, Time
"A visceral and moving act of storytelling . . . No one writes more powerfully than George Saunders about the lost, the unlucky, the disenfranchised."--Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"Saunders's startling, dreamlike stories leave you feeling newly awakened to the world."--People
"It's no exaggeration to say that short story master George Saunders helped change the trajectory of American fiction."--The Wall Street Journal
"An irresistible mix of humor and humanity . . . that will make you beam with unmitigated glee. [Grade: ] A"--Entertainment Weekly
"Saunders captures the fragmented rhythms, disjointed sensory input, and wildly absurd realities of the twenty-first century experience like no other writer."--The Boston Globe
"Tenth of December shows George Saunders at his most subversive, hilarious, and emotionally piercing. Few writers can encompass that range of adjectives, but Saunders is a true original--restlessly inventive, yet deeply humane."--Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Visit from the Goon Squad
"George Saunders is a complete original, unlike anyone else, thank god--and yet still he manages to be the rightful heir to three other complete American originals--Barthelme (the lyricism, the playfulness), Vonnegut (the outrage, the wit, the scope), and Twain (the common sense, the exasperation). There is no author I recommend to people more often--for ten years I've urged George Saunders onto everyone and everyone. You want funny? Saunders is your man. You want emotional heft? Saunders again. You want stories that are actually about something--stories that again and again get to the meat of matters of life and death and justice and country? Saunders. There is no one better, no one more essential to our national sense of self and sanity."--Dave Eggers, author of A Hologram for the King
Praise for George Saunders
"Not since Twain has America produced a satirist this funny."--Zadie Smith
"George Saunders makes the all-but-impossible look effortless. We're lucky to have him."--Jonathan Franzen
"An astoundingly tuned voice--graceful, dark, authentic, and funny--telling just the kinds of stories we need to get us through these times."--Thomas Pynchon
"Saunders is a writer of arresting brilliance and originality, with a sure sense of his material and apparently inexhaustible resources of voice. . . . Scary, hilarious, and unforgettable."--Tobias Wolff
"A multifaceted writer, very easy on the surface to pin down but incredibly difficult once you actually read him with any depth."--Joshua Ferris
"Saunders's satiric vision of America is dark and demented; it's also ferocious and funny."--Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"George Saunders is so funny and inventive he makes you love words and so wide-eyed wistful he talks you into loving people."--Sarah Vowell
GEORGE SAUNDERS WAS NAMED ONE OF THE 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE IN THE WORLD BY TIME MAGAZINE
