George Saunders, Liberation Day *** 1/2

For all of their superficial differences, the stories in Liberation Day share a theme: we end up punishing ourselves when we lash out at others. Genevieve and Brenda let their personal animosity escalate and end up taking each other down in "The Thing at Work"; "The Mom of Bold Action" regrets her bold action in which she abandoned the spirit of forgiveness; the denouncers in the totalitarian society of "Ghoul" all get kicked to death by their peers. The villains exploit the heroes by replacing their memories of our common humanity with a simplified political agenda. You can definitely glean Saunders' view of contemporary society by considering the collection as a whole.

Liberation Day is similar to Saunders' previous collection Tenth of December. It has callbacks to his previous work –– "Ghouls" takes place in the same sort of amusement park setting as "CivilWarLand in Bad Decline" and "Pastoralia", and the title story has people being used as props of social status like "The Semplica Girl Diaries" –– but the best stories are the most direct and realistic ones. Saunders is excellent at capturing the repetitions, false starts, and humor of our everyday thought processes.

No, she loved people. People were great. Even that dolt on the bus. He'd probably given her that cranky look because he'd had a bad day, which, given that ugly mug? No surprise there. Who'd marry that? Nah, even ugly folks got married. They married other uglies. It all worked out. Plus, she herself wasn't married. At the moment.

Lincoln in the Bardo proved that Saunders can infuse the wildest premises with emotional tenderness. The stories in Liberation Day reinforce his belief in the power of empathy and (even feigned) kindness.