George Saunders “CivilWarLand in Bad Decline”(Random House,
first pub 1996)
Thanks to the miracle of 21st century book
giveaways I got my hands on this baby. It’s Saunders’ first book, a collection
of short material.
Wow. I’m blown away and bit embarrassed that I had not read
any of his stuff until now.
In the afterward, Saunders talks about writing this book
while he was working a crap job. And when I say “while he was working”, I mean
that he wrote it on the clock. Once I read this – and if you’ve ever had a crap
office job you’ll know – so much of the book made total sense.
The America of CivilWarLand is tired and overworked. People
are shady and deformed. But in spite of all this, there’s a sense of humanity
throughout. It’s a hard absurd world,
but his characters keep trying.
