Tuesday, February 19, 2008

In Persuasion Nation

On Saturday I bought In Persuasion Nation by George Saunders, which I finished in less than 24 hours. I don't know what to say about him besides that everything he writes is funny and heartbreaking and pretty much indescribable. The story below in particular... I will let it speak for itself. Also he is a very nice man. I wrote him a letter and he sent me a thank you note in reply.

Because I for one wanted to do right, I did not want to sneak through that gap, I wanted to wed someone when old enough (I will soon tell who) and relocate to the appropriate facility in terms of demographics, namely Young Marrieds, such as Scranton, PA, or Mobile, AL, and then along comes Josh doing Ruthie with imperity, and no one is punished, and soon the miracle of birth results and all our Coördinators, even Mr. Delacourt, are bringing Baby Amber stuffed animals? At which point every cell or chromosome or whatever it was in my gonads that had been holding their breaths was suddenly like, Dude, slide through that gap no matter how bad it hurts, squat outside Carolyn's Privacy Tarp whispering, Carolyn, it's me, please un-Velcro your Privacy opening!


"Jon" by George Saunders, available in full from The New Yorker

2 comments:

Stephanie said...

this is very risque.

Meghan Ritchie said...

Risque = Enticing!

Also when I read the part about bringing baby Amber stuffed animals I laughed and thought it was something you would think was funny.