George Saunders

Curious George (Tenth of December by George Saunders)

January 27, 2013

In his latest collection, Tenth of December (Random House), George Saunders pulls back on some of the outlandishness of his earlier stories, though not on his idiosyncratic approach to telling them, which combines the stylized fun-making of employing a debased American sociolect (rife with cliché, [...]

Happy Sesquicentennial, O. Henry!

September 11, 2012

Today, September 11th, 2012, marks the 150th birthday of William Sydney Porter, the American writer better known as O. Henry. Porter died in 1910 but his legacy lives on in the O. Henry Award, an annual prize given to short stories of outstanding merit. To celebrate O. Henry’s birthday [...]

Brief, Funny, a Little Bit Frightening (The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil by George Saunders)

June 14, 2012

George Saunders’ surrealist novella The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil (Riverhead) is a startling, funny satire about a border dispute between the imaginary countries of Inner and Outer Horner and the meteoric rise of the demagogue Phil, a petulant, Machiavellian crumbum who seems peculiarly [...]