By Sean Moeller

Though the faculty member from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, whose duty it was to perform the evening’s introduction, repeatedly left the “u” out of Saunders in his convoluted, but admiration-filled intro – which stumbled on about how poets love the Syracuse University teacher/author of “Pastoralia” and just-released “In Persuasion Nation,” the real George Saunders was indeed there in the University of Iowa’s main library.

Saunders stepped to the lectern with a hand full of disheveled papers, a copy of his new book and a bottle of water. The first words out of his mouth were meant to suggest that that he was intimidated, commenting that there were so many great writers in the room.

“It’s kind of like reading to that mural at Barnes and Noble,” he said to laughs, before adding, “And I heard that you end all of your readings with acts of God.”

He briefly prefaced a reading of the title story from his latest collection, a multi-dimensional, and extremely populated comedic piece about money and spending and commercial influence, by observing that the marketing trend was becoming such that advertisers and products were taking credit for everything good. He suggested that an old woman may suddenly regain her ability to walk and grow long hair again and Citibank would make the pretension that it was its miraculous handiwork.

“So I thought I’d write a whole story of commercials,” he said.

The story, which follows the adventures and deeds of the orange/Grammy/man-briefly-involved-with-a-Dong-Dong/piles-of-mush/penisless-man coalition (discover for yourself the complex relationship of the five on page 155 of “In Persuasion Nation”) and a polar bear with an axe in his head, was transformed into something different off the page than on. Saunders gave life to the characters that sometimes floated too close to absurdity to be seen for their incisive involvement in a greater story about the false God of the almighty dollar. At least, I think that’s what the glowing green symbol (formerly the torn off corner of an intimidating, violent candy bar) that reads minds and rips roofs off of polar bear houses is supposed to represent. Saunders turns the story viable, personifying the characters with amusing voices and depth of emotion. Those critics with the quick-trigger inclination to stamp the brand of sadsack and call him a darkly pessimistic writer need only hear him voice an orange – giving it one of a poindexter sheepishly lecturing the candy bar about its various coloring agents – and they’d hit the delete button or reach for the white-out. Even though he sometimes sounded like Jim Henson a la Kermit the Frog, Saunders was still able to inject purposefulness into the goofiness that was this land of Doritos and Abraham Lincoln having the Gettysburg Address interrupted by a grande Mexican dish with salsa cannons.

He finished and then read “Nostalgia,” a story published two weeks ago in the New Yorker, “so you don’t think I’m all out for laughs.” But it was funny. It’s what he’s great at. When he completed the reading of the short piece that pertained to the exaggerated and sensationalized sexual tolerance of a self-proclaimed prudent man, he thanked everyone to applause and slipped back into his black jacket, without a question and answer session.