You're listening to Book Exploder,
where authors break down a passage from their work to show us how they write.
I'm Rishi K. Shirwe.
And I'm Susan Orlean.
Today, I'm speaking with author George Saunders.
George Saunders has won the Booker Prize, and he's the recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant.
He won the Folio Prize for his collection of short stories,
10th of December, which includes the short story, Victory Lap.
In this episode, Susan and George talk about a passage from Victory Lab.
Susan, do you remember when you first read George Saunders?
I would say reading George Saunders for the first time is like taking LSD for the first time.
I mean, things are familiar and yet they become...
very strange and unrecognizable in a way that's completely engaging.
Nobody writes like George Saunders.
Probably no one on the planet thinks like George Saunders.
Okay, here's Susan's interview with George Saunders.
So if you can identify where this story came from, did it explode out of an image, a phrase?
It actually came out of a sense of inadequacy because my work tends to be pretty dark.
And so I was at a point where I'm like maybe 50 or something and thinking,
why can't I do anything uplifting and lovely, you know?