Thwarted desire in a post-truth world
George Saunders, author of the Man Booker Prizewinning Lincoln in the Bardo, talks about Liberation Day, his new collection of short stories
Stories such as Liberation Day, Love Letter and Ghoul seem to represent aspects of the current political climate. Was that something you wished to work through in your writing?
Honestly, not really, or not consciously, anyway. My approach is to try to lose control of a story and then see what it wants to tell me. It doesn’t surprise me that politics leached into the stories — it’s very much on my mind these days — but I’ve found that my stories get more interesting if I don’t know, overtly, what it is I’m trying to do.
Linguistic oppression is shown as a powerful tool of control in many of these narratives. How do you see the role of political fiction in such a scenario?
It seems to me that all fiction is political, in that it feeds on human desire and the thwarting of the same. So if I can depict a person in a scenario in which his desires are being thwarted, that story is automatically “about” power and oppression and so on; I don’t have to worry about that. We wonder: who is thwarting his desire and why? And that might be a pretty good definition of “politics,” especially dysfunctional politics: someone thwarting someone’s desire.
How did you bring together these short narratives? Did you envision what shape the collection will take?
Yes, I do a very intense and mechanical process once the stories are chosen and finished, a sort of a Rubik’s Cube approach. I write the first and last lines of the story, plus its title, on an index card, and then experiment with different orders until I find the one that feels best; that gives off the most light; feels most likely to drive the reader through the book, to the end.
The Mom of Bold Action reads like a meditation on the very act of storytelling. What was your thought process while composing it?
Well, I had that first section around forever. It had fallen out of another story. So I just started grafting on to it. And since that opening bit had established her as a writer, she had to keep writing throughout the story, or trying to. So I’d say that naturally made the story, as you suggest, “about” storytelling and the danger of false, improperly examined, stories.
Some stories also read like an exposition of a post-truth world. Was that something you wished to articulate?
Yes, that notion is very alive over here (in the US), although our recent elections might signal a slight return to sanity, to the idea that there is no “post-truth” world and never could be. But, rather, the truths of this world have us very much in their grip at every moment. Our goal should be to discern and accept and respond to those truths with courage.
The performative act is central to and even Was that a way to highlight the many forms of dispossession arising out of the political scenario?
Liberation Day, Ghoul Elliot Spencer.
I don’t really approach my stories in quite this way. My focus is on making narrative tension and, well, some fun, you know? My main job, as I write, is to keep my reader engaged; otherwise, no good can come of it. A story will raise all sorts of issues, of course (political and topical and ethical), but to do that (in my experience) it’s best to try to get a little lost, to be free of agenda, to be exploring the story on the basis of its innate energy, always asking, “What is the most interesting way forward?” Sparrow
stands out in the collection for its note of positivity, which is absent in stories such as
A Thing at
Work or Mother’s Day. How did this tonal shift come about?
I always feel that any story that is fundamentally truthful — one that reacts honestly to the energy of its opening sections — is “positive.” Even if the outcome is sad or depressing, the act of writing a truthful story is, or feels to me, hopeful. What is never hopeful is falsification. If, as in Mother’s Day, a character moves toward truth, I feel that is a hopeful journey. But, yes, Sparrow is maybe the one ray of overt hope in the book. I’m not sure why but that’s just where I was during these years — a little leery of false hope, or of a story that conveys false or counterfactual hope in any way.
What draws you to the short story?
I think just that it was the first form I fell in love with, all those years ago, and (somewhat) figured out. I’ve been doing it for a long time and it feels very much like an artistic home. Interesting things happen to me in that space, I think, because I’m confident in it but also am perpetually baffled by it. It’s a very ornery and difficult form that wants you to always be on your toes.