Tenth of December

"George Saunders continues to reinvent the short story in this rambunctious and compassionate fourth collection. He offers wildly absurd tales like “The Semplica Girl Diaries,” in which “SGs” are trophy acquisitions, live lawn ornaments of young women from places like Laos and Somalia, and “Escape from Spiderhead,” in which a young inmate finds a way out of experiments triggering faux lust and despair. And he captures the strange flow of our disjointed times in tales of a teenage girl threatened with violence and a cancer patient intent on suicide who finds his life spirit uncannily rekindled. The artist’s job, Saunders has said, is to be “a conduit to mystery.” Job well done."

"George Saunders is a complete genius. I discovered his books my first season on Saturday Night Live and was blown away."

"George Saunders’s “Tenth of December,” ... “Tenth,” in addition to being funny and stylistically cunning, contains some of the best writing about the psychological toll of inequality that I’ve read in years."

""Tenth of December," by George Saunders. When I got to the part in his story "The Semplica-Girl Diaries" where the narrator describes a cheap basketball that's way too bouncy, a sound I don't know how to properly describe escaped my mouth."

"George Saunders's "Tenth of December" rewards study — best short story writer in English, hands down."

"I just belatedly read "Tenth of December," by George Saunders, and was totally blown away."