By Sean Moeller

George Saunders is hard on society. His short stories casually go about the task of making it obvious that the fleecings can be easy. There are those who are easily persuaded, easily cajoled into the thoughts of the mistaken. Yes, there are actually those out there who follow the Ignatius J. Reillys of the world. Characters in his stories get talked into believing what would have never occurred to them. They’re bushwhacked with simple, illogical explanations, though they’re delivered in an assured manner of speaking, giving them the air of supreme clarity and justification.

He chronicles, in a way that mixes the present and future times with the bygone, which only serves to solidify the thought that we brought this deterioration on ourselves. We’re the pilots. He’s not the harbinger of the doomsday – as so many have been quick to declare, just a humorous guy who can write the shit out of the tongue and cheek.

Saunders’ latest collection of stories, “In Persuasion Nation,” out today on Riverhead Books, begins with a story, written as a response to a letter of complaint from a consumer to a children’s toy company, involving a mask that infants can wear that will translate their thoughts into phrases in the baby’s projected future voice. It’s considered a good idea by the company head that the baby should give off the appearance that it’s more developed and intellectual than its drooling and teething would suggest, saying random things like, “It is very possible that we still don’t fully understand the import of all of Einstein’s findings,” at dinner parties.

The persuasion nation that exists in the book involves Twinkies, a severed penis, Dorito-loving grandparents and a polar bear who idolizes a false God. Characters throughout the stories wrestle with the things they think are right, weighing them against what everyone around them thinks is correct, finding nothing but skewed thinking and flawed logic. And isn’t that the way it really is, even in our non-fictionalized world? You’re only crazy if someone else tells you that you are. You’re only wrong if someone else tells you that they’re right. The rational people in Saunders’ parenthetical prose are few and far between, making him as enjoyably humorous and enjoyably cynical as Kurt Vonnegut has ever been.

www.georgesaundersland.com