By Megan Thomas
Wowee. What a high on which to start my George Saunders reading experience! I’ve read and heard a great deal about this man’s knack for a short story (The Telegraph literally called him the “world’s best short story writer” which, as a short story writer, should not be taken lightly) and it is safe to say I’m in awe of the miniature worlds he has created across this anthology.
Pivoting around the relationship between freedom and oppression, each of the nine stories takes a turn to paint a world with different concentrations of these notions – often to the extreme. I am going to write a larger blog post on each story because it’s impossible to do them justice when clumping them together – but if you’ve read it, I’ll tell you that my favourite was Ghoul and then either Love Letter or A Thing At Work.
I had the pleasure of reading this for review for Buzz Magazine and you can read that here.
“In (the story) Liberation Day, the collection’s namesake, the sinister plot reflects the extent to which society is tethered to its ability to oppress, whether through brute force or through the facade of choice. Across the globe, we are seeing history’s lessons ignored; across this anthology, we see the collective, urgent willingness to reframe the world to suit how we want it to be. Is brainwashing a suitable trade-off for survival? Is there such a thing as free will in times of desperation?”
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Read more short story collections:
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