George Saunders, who has a new collection of stories out, has been interviewed by Deborah Solomon in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Many years ago, when I came to the US, George was a fellow grad student at Syracuse, and also my neighbor on Ackerman Avenue. But before he arrived in Syracuse to study with Toby Wolff and Ray Carver, George had been at the Colorado School of Mines, where, as he mentions in his interview, he didn’t get anywhere in writing and ended up working for engineering companies. It was there that he found his material “in the everyday struggle between capitalism and grace.”

I love George because he is funny and humane. I also believe that he has produced a new language in his fiction, one in which commodities and brand names, even while they mock the presiding truths of our age, are hollowed out by heartache and loss.

Also, how many other writers would say what he does about the writing he has done for his two daughters?

That for me was the big turning point in my artistic life, when my wife and I had our kids. The world got infused with morality again. Every person in the world should theoretically be loved as much as I love my daughters. It’s that Martin Buber “I and Thou” thing. Even this lowly wino was once somebody’s beloved son. Or should have been.

George, keep writing. Love to Paula and the kids. Here’s a picture of my little one.

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