Book Review: Liberation Day by George Saunders
This short story collection was my second outing with George Saunders after Fox 8.
Of the 9 stories, I enjoyed these the most:
- Sparrow: A simple, plain girl, constantly overlooked, finds happiness.
- The Mom of Bold Action: A struggling children's author accidentally discovers her powerful essay-writing skills when confronted with a (minor) tragedy.
- A Thing at Work: An employee steals, but others do too so why is she being unfairly punished?
- Mother's Day: Old, stubborn ladies hold grudges for way too long.
- My House: A real estate purchase goes awry.
These stories are driven by their characters, who are brought to life by Saundersâs writing. Theyâre all imperfect people - no one is wholly virtuous, nor is anyone an unholy monster (apart from the story with actual monsters, many of whom were pretty decent folks).
Most of the stories begin in medias res, with limited exposition. This is not a big deal for stories set in the familiar world we inhabit, but I was left wanting for explanations about the more fantastical, fictional settings. How do these worlds work? How did they come about?
Interestingly, most of those settings involved oppressive, unfair systems where characters attempted to revolt or were browbeaten into submission. There's a strong current of social justice running through the whole collection.
Two stories (Liberation Day, Elliott Spencer) have a premise I really dislike: âdude wakes up and can't remember anything because he's been brainwashedâ. I gave Project Hail Mary a pass for this, but Iâm reaching my annual limit.
On the whole, I enjoyed enough of this book to want to check out more of Saunders's writing specifically, and short stories more generally.
Footnote 1: The above post is 276 words long. There are days left in the year.
Footnote 2: I refuse to be beholden to arbitrary word count restrictions. Especially when I'm the one who set them in the first place.