Dark mirrors

George Saunders' new collection of short fiction blends the real and the absurd as it reflects the horrors of the Trump era.  

- SUE ORR

LIBERATION DAY, by George Saunders (Bloomsbury, $32.99)

American writer and Man Booker Prize winner George Saunders' short fiction comes in two distinct but equally delicious flavours - realism and absurdism. His latest collection, Liberation Day, satisfies both palates, switching between the two genres over 231 pages and nine stories. He adopted this approach in his last collection, Tenth of December, published in 2013. That book was a finalist in the US National Book Awards, and won the inaugural Folio Prize. If it ain't broke, don't fix it seems to be the thinking here.

Liberation Day opens with the title novella, an absurdist offering. A cast of captive Speakers and Singers are pinioned to the walls and ceilings of the Untermeyer family home. Their brains are controlled by the family members to perform historical re-enactments - including the Battle of the Greasy Grass, or Little Bighorn - for visiting company. The narrator, Jeremy, falls for Mrs Untermeyer. What could go wrong? (Everything.)