Short Story Genius

Posted by Charlotte Martinez in Creative Writing

George Saunders’ latest short story collection Tenth of December

On Feb. 12, Lannan Foundation hosted a reading at The Lensic Performing Arts Center with short story author and “genius grant” winner George Saunders (Tenth of December, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline and Pastoralia) followed by a Q&A, conducted New York Times Deputy Editor Joel Lovell. With animated voice and comedic timing, Saunders’ reading of “Victory Lap” demonstrated his quirky yet humanizing styles, while the conversation that followed brought out the perks and surprises of the author’s past.

“I think is was one of the best Lannan evenings that I’ve seen,” says Creative Writing Department Co-Chair Matt Donovan. “The conversations in those types of events aren’t always focused on elements of craft and I really appreciated the ways in which they made it accessible.” Rather than didactic responses, for example, Saunders provided Lovell, who is a previous acquaintance, with entertaining and lax conversation.

Donovan describes also an appreciation of the writer’s reading performance. A talented use of vocals, especially when changing from the POV of a little girl practicing ballet to a middle aged raper, kept the audience members on the edge of their seats, while Saunders’ witty pacing took the edge off of an otherwise dark story.

Laugh. Gape. Laugh more. Stare in utter shock. Laugh.

“He was entertaining, he was funny, he was poignant and he called me a badass,” says R.A. Ademulegun, Creative Writing student, who waited for Saunders’ autograph after the reading. “He gave me great pointers. You know, ‘a table is a table,’” Ademulegun says, quoting Saunders from his Q&A when he expressed an impatience for flowery language. “We’re always trying to impress people with our work,” Ademulegun concludes. “Our readers are just ordinary people.”

Following the reading, Lovell, who wrote a cover story on Tenth of December for The New York Times, ignited the writer’s beginning, from a nun handing Saunders a copy of “Johnny Tremaine” to his liberal re-birth after working in Singapore. Saunders admits that although he aspired at an early age to be as educated as Hemingway, he realized “what little you know at that age is a little shameful, but it’s yours.” After his attempts of “trudging” up “Hemingway mountain,” which required the writer to exempt “everything that was actually [him],” Saunders found his own style and let his “funny,” “fast talking,” “pop culture” writing back in. He calls this step a “bittersweet thing,” for now instead of a mountain, Saunders says, “this is me, on the shit hill.” But his readers wouldn’t have it any other way.

 In his Times article, Lovell described his reading of Tenth of December as the following:

“A kind of giddiness come over me realizing that it was a rare book. It was doing things that, as far as I know, hadn’t been done in fiction before…He can set out to write a story about a penguin that has a farting problem and is shunned by the other penguins, and it will, because of who he is, grow into something meaningful.” (The 6th Floor, Eavesdropping on the Times Magazine. 2013.)