My edition of Tenth of December includes a conversation between Saunders and David Sedaris. And one really solid connection is, really, everything that matters. That’s part of the trick of short fiction, isn’t it? The brevity of the form means writers can try a lot of things, take a lot of chances, be a lot of different things–if they want to (as Saunders clearly does). Reading “Tenth of December” made reading Tenth of December more than worthwhile to me. One in ten: not a great ratio, if you weigh every reading experience equally, but I don’t think art really works that way. Then I read “Tenth of December.” This story put a lot less gimmickry in my way it was the only story in the book that seemed to me clearly written by the author of Lincoln in the Bardo. Nevertheless, I persisted with Tenth of December, both because of Lincoln in the Bardoand because of Saunders’ reputation, including with readers whose sensibilities I trust. “Home” was a better experience for me “My Chivalric Fiasco” was worse. (I’m not saying it isn’t there: just that the style and conceit were very distancing for me.) This slowed my momentum in the collection to the point that I nearly didn’t pick it up again.

Then, unfortunately, I really bogged down in “The Semplica Girl Diaries”: it was obviously doing a lot, but the story’s concept was so aggressive, its execution so heavy-handed, that for me the whole exercise just drowned out any underlying humanity in the story itself.

I was doing OK, if not great, with Tenth of December until I got to “The Semplica Girl Diaries.” Up to that point the story I’d appreciated the most was “Sticks” I was gripped by both “Victory Lap” and “Puppy,” and “Escape from Spiderhead” moved quickly enough that I didn’t quite tire of the conceit before it ended. Perhaps this is a lesson in the importance of reading to the end it is certainly a reminder that abandoning books part way through brings the risk of missing what is best about them. Everything was good now, everything was -Īlthough I found several of the stories in it interesting and memorable, I didn’t much like Tenth of December until I read “Tenth of December,” the final story in the collection. He hadn’t died in his shorts by a pond in the snow. What a thing! To go from dying in your underwear in the snow to this! Warmth, colors, antlers on the walls, an old-time crank phone like you saw in silent movies.

Saunders 10th of december