George Saunders is an American writer and Booker Prize winning novelist for "Lincoln at the Bardot " (2017). His short stories, "Tenth of December" earned the Folio Prize (2013). He's also a journalist and a prof. of creative writing at Syracuse Univ. In Saunders' latest short story collection, PASTORALIA, his imaginative skills capture the inner workings of the psyche delve. He takes us into the not too distant future where people perform as early cavemen for amusement and into the home where a woman returns from the graver to claim her share of living. In a more subdued tale, a middle-aged bachelor living at home with his overbearing mother wants to find happiness. If there's any unifying theme, it may be the desire for wanting a better lot than the hand that's been dealt. The heavy-set, balding man who caters to his complaining mother and her demanding friends wishes to meet a nice lady to date. His ego and insecurities are both battling incessantly inside his head at full throttle. Sadly, his opportunities for meeting women between being at home or at his barber shop are nil until he goes to traffic school where he's smitten by a woman in the class, or at least so it seems at first glance. But, he'd probably mess things up given the chance. "Other people were simpler and looked at the world with clearer eyes, but he was self-absorbed and insincere and mucked everything up." The title story "Pastorali" depicts an unnamed man and woman who must enact being in a life-size diorama as early cave dwellers scrounging for food, making fires and taking fleas off each other. The man has been protecting his co-worker, cave-dweller by not reporting her flagrant dereliction of duties as he's required to by the corporate conglomeration that employs them. The satirical communications via faxes are darkly humorous depicting the cover your own ass strategies that serve to protect one's livelihood. The most macabre and morose story is about an extended family who live under one roof and are mainly supported by the tedious hourly cashiering job of the matriarchal aunt. The aunt dies unexpectedly leaving the family at loose ends which only becomes worse when the aunt returns from the grave with loosely attached body parts to inform the family how things are going to run going forward. She tells them what they need to support each other and more importantly, her. Because now that she's back from the dead she has plans to make up for her lost time. Reading anything by Saunders is assuredly going to be original, satirical and unpredictable. Predictably, PASTORALIA by George Saunders is writing at its wittiest as reading anything by him will be worthwhile.
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