A name that came up in book reviews, interviews with writers (favourite or current reads) was short story writer George Saunders. Anyone who receives the kind of glowing book jacket recommendations as he does from the likes of Dave Eggers, Zadie Smith, Jonathan Franzen and Thomas Pynchon, and is compared to Mark Twain gets my attention. I picked his much lauded collection Tenths of December (2013).
A writer’s voice gets referred to a lot and it’s maybe the aspect that jumps off the page most astoundingly in this set of stories.
It’s the kind of writing that reminds you of how much fun and adventurous words can be.
Without talking about plot or even character, I’ll let the voices in two of the stories speak for themselves.
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From “Home”:
Then held a match to the carpet on the stairs and, once it started burning, raised a finger, like, Quiet, through me runs the power of recent dark experience.
Were stores open past midnight? Still, the moon was high and there was something moist and sad in the air that seemed to be saying, Well, it’s not early.
Ryan’s parents had sonorous/confident voices that seemed to have been fabricated out of previous, less sonorous/confident voices by means of sudden money.
From the title story, “Tenth of December”, the opening line:
The pale boy wit unfortunate Prince Valiant bangs and cublike mannerisms hulked to the mudroom closet and requisitioned Dad’s white coat.
And these other gems:
Mom treated him like a piece of glass. Due to his alleged infant surgeries. She went on full alert if he so much as used a stapler.
He wanted the shore. He knew that was the right place for him. But the pond kept saying no. Then it said maybe.
What she meant was: Don’t die yet. There are many of us who wish to judge you harshly in the sunroom.
A Day Like All Days 