Random House
January 2013
On Sale: January 8, 2013
272 pages ISBN: 0812993802 EAN: 9780812993806 Kindle: B008LMB4C2 Hardcover / e-Book Add to Wish List
One of the most important and blazingly original writers of
his generation, George Saunders is an undisputed master of
the short story, and Tenth of December is his most honest,
accessible, and moving collection yet.
In the taut opener, “Victory Lap,” a boy witnesses the
attempted abduction of the girl next door and is faced with
a harrowing choice: Does he ignore what he sees, or override
years of smothering advice from his parents and act? In
“Home,” a combat-damaged soldier moves back in with his
mother and struggles to reconcile the world he left with the
one to which he has returned. And in the title story, a
stunning meditation on imagination, memory, and loss, a
middle-aged cancer patient walks into the woods to commit
suicide, only to encounter a troubled young boy who, over
the course of a fateful morning, gives the dying man a final
chance to recall who he really is. A hapless, deluded owner
of an antiques store; two mothers struggling to do the right
thing; a teenage girl whose idealism is challenged by a
brutal brush with reality; a man tormented by a series of
pharmaceutical experiments that force him to lust, to love,
to kill—the unforgettable characters that populate the pages
of Tenth of December are vividly and lovingly infused with
Saunders’s signature blend of exuberant prose, deep
humanity, and stylistic innovation.
Writing brilliantly and profoundly about class, sex, love,
loss, work, despair, and war, Saunders cuts to the core of
the contemporary experience. These stories take on the big
questions and explore the fault lines of our own morality,
delving into the questions of what makes us good and what
makes us human.
Unsettling, insightful, and hilarious, the stories in Tenth
of December—through their manic energy, their focus on what
is redeemable in human beings, and their generosity of
spirit—not only entertain and delight; they fulfill
Chekhov’s dictum that art should “prepare us for tenderness.”
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