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- [00:01]
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- [00:40]
Deborah Treisman
This is the New Yorker fiction podcast from the New Yorker Magazine. I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at the New Yorker. Each month we invite a writer to choose a story from the magazine's archives to read and discuss. This month we're going to hear Love Letter by George Saunders, which appeared in the New Yorker in April of 2020.
- [00:58]
David Sedaris
I just want to say that history, when it arrives, may not look as you expect. Based on the reading of history books, things in there are always so clear, one knows exactly what one would have done.
- [01:12]
Deborah Treisman
The story was chosen by David Sedaris, who's the author of more than a dozen books of essays, memoirs and diaries, including most recently the Carnival of Snackery and Happy Go Lucky.
- [01:24]
Hi, David.
- [01:25]
David Sedaris
Hi, Deborah.
- [01:25]
Deborah Treisman
Welcome back.
- [01:27]
David Sedaris
Thank you for having me.
- [01:28]
Deborah Treisman
On previous episodes, you read stories by Miranda July and Wells Tower, and now.
- [01:34]
You'Ve chosen George Saunders.
- [01:35]
And I'm wondering if for you there's some kind of thread between the three, like what it is that their stories inspire in you or incite in you.
- [01:44]
David Sedaris
Hmm. Gosh. Well, I think the thing that unites them all is I clearly remember reading them when they came out, clearly remember reading them in the magazine and feeling shaken by them. And when I read Love Letter, I actually wrote to George and I said, I think this is, to me, the story is like the lottery, just in terms of something that spoke to the human condition at a certain period of time. I mean, you can find a million like memes, or you can find a million like pictures of, let's say, Donald Trump on a pig's body or something like that. But it's not art, and this was art. And this made us all look at ourselves in a way that nothing before that had. And I just really was so moved by it. And I just think it's a masterpiece.
- [02:46]
Deborah Treisman
Without giving too much away, the story is set in the near future, but also was completely feeding on what was happening in the country at the time that George wrote it. Do you feel that it was prescient, that it was inspiring. Do you think it would have changed anything in the minds of readers in.
- [03:13]
The way that the Lottery did?
- [03:15]
You know, the lottery really stirred people up. It horrified a lot of people.
- [03:20]
David Sedaris
Well, again, I think the thing is that people don't read the way that they used to, or there's so much other noise. So I don't think. I'm guessing the story didn't have the audience that the Lottery did when it came out.
- [03:35]
Deborah Treisman
Didn't have the attention. Yeah, yeah. What got my attention and got your attention, and do you think that was driven by the style or the content or both?
- [03:50]
David Sedaris
I would say, for me, it's a.
- [03:51]
Combination of the two things. If I look at a writer like Donald Bartleme, I can appreciate kind of the risks that he takes, but ultimately, I don't feel anything. I just see words on a page, but I'm not left feeling anything. But with George, I am left that way. Like when you think about something like the Simplica Girls, or you might start reading it and you might start thinking like, well, this is a little bit difficult. Like, this is kind of hard to read. And it's not like the paragraph doesn't look the way I want the paragraph to look, but you feel that the people are real. And he has a way of. I don't know, of turning the page into a mirror in a way I don't know that many people really can like this story. He really turns a page into a mirror and I think you really are forced to look at yourself and wince quite often.
- [04:45]
Deborah Treisman
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, I think we should talk more after you read the story.
- [04:52]
So now here is David Sedaris reading Love Letter by George saunders.
- [04:59]
David Sedaris
Love letter, February 22, 2020. Dear Robbie, Got your email, kid. Sorry for handwriting in reply. Not sure emailing is the best move considering the topic. But of course, you being nearly six.
- [05:19]
Foot now, your mother says that's up to you, dear.
- [05:22]
Although, you know, strange times, beautiful day here. A flock of geese just came in low over the deck, and your grandmother and I, holding the bright blue mugs you kindly sent at Christmas, did simultaneous hip swivels as they zinged off toward Rosley. And I expect an easy meal on the golf course there. Forgive my use of initials and what follows, would not wish to cause further difficulties for G, M or J. Good folks all. We very much enjoyed meeting them when you stopped by last Easter. Should this get sidetracked and read by someone other than you. I think you are right regarding G.
- [06:04]
That ship has sailed.
- [06:05]
Best to let that go. M, per your explanation, does not lack proper paperwork, but did know all the while that G did lack it, yes, and did nothing about that. I'm not suggesting, of course, that she should have, but putting ourselves into their heads, as I think these days, it is prudent to do, we might ask why didn't M, again according to them, to their way of thinking, do what she should have done by letting someone in authority know about G, since being here is a privilege and not a right, Are we or are we not, as I have grown sick of hearing a nation of laws, even as they change the laws constantly to suit their own beliefs. Believe me, I am as disgusted as you are with all this. But the world, in my ancient experience, sometimes moves off in a certain direction and having moved, being so large and inscrutable, cannot be recalled to its previous better state. And so in this current situation, it behooves us, I would say, to think as they think, as well as we can manage to avoid as much unpleasantness and future harm as possible. But of course you were writing really to ask about Jay? Yes. Am still in touch with the lawyer you mentioned. Don't feel he would be of much help at this point. In his prime he was, yes, a prince of a guy striding into a courthouse. But he is not now the man he was. He opposed, perhaps too energetically, the DOJ review ouster of sitting judges and endured much abuse in the press. And his property was defaced and he was briefly detained. And these days, from what I have heard, his mostly just puttering around his yard, keeping his views to himself. Where's Jay now, do you know? State facility or fed that may matter. I expect they loyalists would, with the power of the courts now behind them, say that although Jay is a citizen, she forfeited certain rights and privileges by declining to offer the requested info on G and M. You may recall R and K friends of ours who gave you for your fifth sixth birthday that Bronze Lincoln Bank. They are loyalists still in touch. And that is the sort of logic they follow. A guy over in Bremerton befriended a guy at the gym and they would go on runs together and so forth. And the first guy, after declining to comment on what he knew of his friend's voting past, suddenly found he could no longer register his work vehicle. He was a florist, so this proved problematic. RNK's take on this. A person is no patriot if he refuses to answer a simple question from his own homeland government. That is where we find ourselves. You ask if you were supposed to stand by and watch your friend's life be ruined. Two answers, one as a citizen and.
- [09:11]
The other as a grandfather.
- [09:13]
You have turned to me in what must be a difficult time, and I'm trying to be frank. As a citizen, I can of course understand why a young, intelligent, good looking person, perpetual delight to know, I might add, would feel that it is his duty to do something on behalf of his friend Jay. But what exactly? That is the question. When you reach a certain age, you see that time is all we have. By which I mean moments. Like those overhead geese this morning and watching your mother be born and sitting at the dining room table here waiting for the phone to ring and announce that a certain baby you had been born. Or that day when all of us hiked out to Point Lobos. Those baby deer, the extremely loud seal, your sister's scarf drifting down down to that black briny boulder, the replacement you so generously bought her in Monterey. How pleased you made her with your kindness. Those things are real, that is what.
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That is all one gets.
- [10:20]
The other stuff is only real to the extent that it interferes with those moments. Now, you may say, I can hear you saying it and see the look on your face as you do, that this incident with Jay is an interference. I respect that. But as your grandfather, I beg you not to underestimate the power danger of this moment. Perhaps I haven't told you this yet. In the early days, I wrote two letters to the editor of the local rag. One overwrought, the other comic. Neither had any effect. Those who agreed with me agreed with me. Those who did not remained unpersuaded. After a third attempt was rejected, I found myself pulled over up near the house. For no reason I could discern.
- [11:07]
The cop.
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Nice guy. Just a kid, really, from my perspective, asked what I did all day. Did I have any hobbies?
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I said.
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No, he said, Some of us heard.
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You like to type.
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I sat in my car looking over at his large, pale arm. His face was a face of a kid. His arm, though, was the arm of a man.
- [11:29]
How would you know about that? I said.
- [11:33]
Have a good night, sir, he said. Stay off the computer. Good Lord. His stupidity and bulk there in the darkness, the metallic clanking from his belt area, the palpable certainty he seemed to feel regarding his cause. A cause I cannot begin, even at this late date, to get my head around or view from within, so to speak. I do not want you anywhere near or under the sway of that sort of person. Ever. I feel here a need to address the last part of your email, which I want to assure you did not upset me or hurt my feelings. No. When you reach my age, and if you were lucky enough to have a grandson like you, stellar, you will know that nothing that that grandson could say could ever hurt your feelings. And in fact, I am so touched that you thought to write me in your time of need and be so direct and even, I admit it, somewhat rough with me seen in retrospect. Yes, I have regrets. There was a certain critical period.
- [12:38]
I see that now.
- [12:40]
During that period, your grandmother and I were doing every night a jigsaw puzzle each at that dining room table. I know. You know? Well, we were planning to have the kitchen redone. We were in the midst of having the walls out in the yard we built at great expense. I was experiencing the first intimations of the dental issues. I know you have heard so much, too much about. Every night, as we sat across from each other doing those puzzles, from the TV in the next room blared this litany of things that had never before happened, that we could never have imagined.
- [13:13]
Happening, that were now happening.
- [13:15]
And the only response from the TV pundits was a wry satirical smugness that assumed, as we all assumed, that those things could and would soon be undone and that all would return to normal, that some adult or adults would arrive as they had always arrived in the.
- [13:32]
Past, to set things right.
- [13:35]
It did not seem, and please destroy this letter after you have read it, that someone so clownish could disrupt something so noble and time tested and seemingly strong that had been with us literally every day of our lives. We had taken, in other words, a profound gift for granted, did not know the gift was a fluke, a chimera, a wonderful accident of consensus and mutual understanding. Because this destruction was emanating from such an inept source, who seemed at that time merely comically thuggish, who seemed to know so little about what he was disrupting. And because life was going on, and because every day he. They burst through some new gate of propriety, we soon found that no genuine outrage was available to us anymore. If you'll allow me, a crude metaphor, as I'm sure you, the king of las bromas de fartos, will. A guy comes into a dinner party, takes a dump on the rug in the living room. The guests all get excited, yell in protest, he takes a second dump. The guests feel, well, yelling didn't help. While some of them applaud his audacity, he takes a third dump on the table and still no one throws him out. At that point the sky has become the limit in terms of future dumps. So although your grandmother and I during this critical period often said, you know, someone should arrange a march or those effing Republican senators, we soon grew weary of hearing ourselves saying those things and to avoid being old people, emptily repeating.
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Ourselves, stopped saying those things and did.
- [15:17]
Our puzzles and so forth, waiting for the election. I'm speaking here of the second, not the third, of the sun, which, being a total sham, didn't hurt surprise as much post election, doing new puzzles, mine a difficult sort of Catskill summer scene, noting those early pardons which by the time they were granted, we'd been well prepared to expect and tolerated, and then that deluge of pardons each making way for the next, and the celebratory verbal nonsense accompan the pardons to which again we were by this time somewhat inured, and the targeting of judges and the incidents in Reno and Lowell and the investigations into pundits and the casting aside of term limits, we did still not really believe in this thing that was happening. Birds still burst out of the trees and so forth.
- [16:11]
I feel I am disappointing you. I just want to say that history.
- [16:16]
When it arrives, may not look as you expect. Based on the reading of history books, things in there are always so clear. One knows exactly what one would have done. Your grandmother and I and many others would have had to have been more extreme people than we were during that critical period to have done whatever it.
- [16:37]
Was we should have been doing, and.
- [16:39]
Our lives had not prepared us for that extremity, to mobilize or to be focused and energized, as I can see in retrospect, we would have needed to be. We were not prepared to drop everything in defense of a system that was to us like oxygen, used constantly, never noted. We were spoiled, I think I am trying to say, as were those on the other side, willing to tear it all down because they had been so thoroughly nourished by the vacuous plenty in which we all lived, a bountiful condition that allowed people to thrive and opine and swagger around like kings and queens while remaining ignorant of their own history. What would you have had me do?
- [17:20]
What would you have done?
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I know what you will say. You would have fought. But how? How would you have fought?
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Would you have called your senator?
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In those days you still could at least record your feeble message on a senator's answering machine without reprisal. But you might as well have Been singing or whistling or passing wind into it for all the good it did? Well, we did that. We called, we wrote letters. Would you have given money to certain people running for office? We did that as well. Would you have marched? For some reason there were suddenly no marches. Organized a march then and now. I did not and do not know how to organize a march. I was still working full time. This dental thing had just begun. That rather occupies the mind. You know where we live. Would you have had me go down to Waterville and harangue the officials there? They were all in agreement with us at that time. Would you have armed yourself? I would not and will not, and I do not believe you would either. I hope not. By that all is lost. Let me, at the end, return to the beginning. I advise and implore you stay at out of this business with Jay. Your involvement will not help. Especially if you don't know where they have taken her, fed or state, and may in fact hurt. I hope I do not offend if I here use the phrase empty gesture. Not only would Jay's situation be made worse, so might that of your mother, father, sister, grandmother, grandfather, et cetera, et cetera. Part of the complication is that you are not alone in this. I want you. Well, I want you someday to be an old fart yourself, writing a too long letter to a beloved grandson. In this world we speak much of courage and not, I feel enough about discretion and caution. I know how this will sound to you. Let it be. I have lived this long and have the right. It occurs to me only now that you and Jay may be more than just friends. That if the case would, I know, must complicate the matter. I had last night a vivid dream of those days, of that critical pre election period. I was sitting across from your grandmother. She at work on her puzzle, puppies and kittens, I on mine, gnomes in trees. And suddenly we saw in a flash things as they were. That is, we realized that this was a critical moment. We looked at each other across the table with such freshness, if I may say it that way. Such love for each other and for our country. The country in which we had lived our whole lives. The many roads, hills, lakes, malls, byways, villages we had known and moved about.
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And around in so freely.
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How precious and dear it all seemed. Your grandmother stood with that decisiveness. I know. You know. Let me think of what we must do, she said. Then I woke there in bed. I felt for a brief instant that.
- [20:33]
It was that time again and not this time.
- [20:37]
Lying there I found myself wondering for the first time in a long while, not what should I have done, but what might I yet do? I came back to myself gradually.
- [20:49]
It was sad, a sad moment to.
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Be once again at a time and place where action was not possible. I wish with all my heart that we could have passed it on to you intact.
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I do. That is now not to be. That regret I will take to my grave.
- [21:08]
Wisdom now amounts to making such intelligent.
- [21:11]
Accommodations as we can.
- [21:13]
I am not saying stick your head in the sand. Jane made a choice.
- [21:16]
I respect her for it. And yet no one is calling on.
- [21:21]
You to do anything. You are, in my view, doing much good simply by rising in the morning, being as present and kind as possible, keeping sanity alive in the world so that someday, when, if this thing passes, the country may find its way back.
- [21:38]
To normalcy with your help and the.
- [21:40]
Help of those like you in this. You are and I am, I hope, like cave people, sheltering a small remaining trace of fire through a dark period. But please note that I understand how hard it must be to stay silent and inactive if in fact Jay was more than just a friend. She is a lovely person and I recall her crossing our yard with her particular grace and brio, swinging your car keys on that long silver chain, her.
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Dog Whiskey running there beside her.
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I feel I've made my preference clear above. I say what follows, not to encourage.
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But we have money, not much, but some set aside should push come to shove. I am finding it hard to advise you. Please let us know what you are inclined to do as we find that this you is all we can now think of. With much love, more than you can know. G. Paul.
- [22:48]
Deborah Treisman
That was David Sedaris reading Love Letter by George Saunders. The story was published in the New Yorker in April of 2020 and was included in the 2021 edition of Best American Short Stories and in Saunders collection Liberation Day in 2022.
- [23:04]
David Remnick
Hi, this is David Remnick and I'm pleased to share the news that I'm Not a Robot. A live action short film from the New Yorker's Screening Room series has been shortlisted for the Academy Awards. This thought provoking film grapples with questions that we can all relate to about identity and technology and what it means to be human in an increasingly digital world. I encourage you to watch I'm Not a Robot along with our full slate of documentary and narrative films@newyorker.com video.
- [23:34]
Deborah Treisman
So David, now we are talking about the story with knowledge of the story. It's set in February 20, 20something. It's 202 blank. Right. So we know it's set in this decade. Right. It was written in the first year of the decade. It's set sometime before 2030. And it's set at a time when an authoritarian leader has been reelected, and then in a sham election, his son has taken over. So worst case scenario, probably in 2020. And we haven't encountered exactly that thing. But it is strange to be sitting here doing this taping on May 31, the day after Donald Trump was found guilty of 34 felonies. So do you feel that you read it differently now than you did when you first read it four years ago?
- [24:32]
David Sedaris
I read it a bit differently because I feel like it's an ongoing story.
- [24:39]
In a way that I didn't imagine.
- [24:41]
That it would be. You know, when he talks about someone defecating on a table, you know, like, the table was definitely defecated on yesterday, you know, And I think there are a lot of people who were like, well, that's so much came before it that it's not shocking in a way that it would have been shocking with another politician.
- [25:06]
Deborah Treisman
Yeah.
- [25:06]
David Sedaris
And the fact that could be the president again a year from now. And just that aspect, too, that, you know, just sort of being frogs in a. In water that slowly boils, and you just. Life goes on and birds still burst forth from the trees. And, you know, I've had people say to me, look, really, it's not the end of the world. You know what I mean? Like, your life won't be that horrible. It's not like somebody's going to come and take your home away from you or kill the people in your family. But just even thinking that way. So that's the bar, right? Well, I'm not going to die.
- [25:46]
Deborah Treisman
You hope.
- [25:47]
I mean, probably not.
- [25:48]
David Sedaris
Right.
- [25:49]
Deborah Treisman
But some people clearly have been thrown in this world, have been thrown into prison for failing to rat on their friends. And there's a lawyer who's had his home defaced and now doesn't argue in court anymore.
- [26:02]
David Sedaris
And I love the grandfather getting stopped.
- [26:04]
By the policeman who says, I really.
- [26:06]
Deborah Treisman
Like to write letters for his local, you know, hometown paper. Editorials. Yeah. So there's a threatening environment. I feel like there's the two strains in this story with the grandfather saying, well, you know, here we are. We still have these moments. We can watch the geese, and those are the important things. And he hasn't taken that away. And then there's the grandfather saying, I wish we could have given you a Perfect world or a better world, and we failed and we didn't do something at the crucial moment that we should have done. You know, he says he's going to answer as a, as a citizen and then as a grandfather, even just within himself, he's in conflict, clearly.
- [26:49]
David Sedaris
Well, to me, the saddest part of it is when he says that there's a lot said about courage but not enough said about discretion and caution. That's just. There's a reason there's a lot said about courage. Like, you know, there aren't books written about people who just kept their heads down very careful. But also, I think what makes it so beautiful is the grandfather's age makes it really beautiful. And that the grandfather so adores his grandson. And I love that moment when he's.
- [27:30]
Talking about how the grandson bought a.
- [27:31]
Replacement scarf for his sister and the kindness. Like, you can see that he's a lovely man. And what he's saying is what you would expect a grandfather to say. But it's just so sad to me. But at the same time, it's George Saunders. So it's funny, like, you know, his puzzle is. He's doing a puzzle of gnomes in trees.
- [28:03]
Deborah Treisman
Yeah. Do you think that this grandfather has given up because he's completely hopeless, because he's in despair about not being able to make any change, not being able to do anything? Or do you think it's actual full on just fear of the consequences if he does try?
- [28:21]
David Sedaris
I think probably being stopped by the police and then having things happen to certain friends was really all it took. And all it would take for most of us, really. You know, when you think about people who do do extraordinary things, I mean, when you think of the fear they don't have. Gosh, I don't even know if I know anybody like that.
- [28:47]
Deborah Treisman
Yeah. I mean, it's interesting to think of it from the grandson's point of view too, because we're somewhere between eight and 12 years into this new regime in the story. And the grandson, well, now he's 6ft, sounds like he's in his late teens. So really this has been his life. His life has been under this regime and he wouldn't have much memory of living a different way. And yet he is the one who is fired up. You would think he would be sort of. Well, this is just how this country is. And rather it's the grandfather doing that.
- [29:28]
David Sedaris
That's what we really need young people.
- [29:30]
Deborah Treisman
For, though, you know, to stand up for everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, how do you think George feels about the grandfather. How do you think as a writer he felt about this character?
- [29:46]
David Sedaris
I think he treats him with real love. I mean, the grandfather is, at the end of the day, like a grandfather who just loves his grandson and doesn't want him to get hurt, just wants him to be alive. And if that means that you just sort of resign yourself and just pay a lot more attention to geese than whatever it takes to keep you alive.
- [30:16]
Deborah Treisman
Yeah. And then at the end, something shifts a little bit.
- [30:23]
David Sedaris
Right at the end when he's saying, I just want you to know we have some money. I feel I've made my preferences clear above. I say what follows not to encourage, but we have money. Not much, but some set aside should push come shove, and then I am finding it hard to advise you. Please let us know what you're inclined to do. It's interesting that little. Should push come to shove. There's a whole 10 pages between the word shove and I. That's not in the letter, you know.
- [30:55]
Deborah Treisman
Mm. What's happening on those 10 pages?
- [30:58]
David Sedaris
Well, I think he doesn't feel com. You know, he doesn't feel comfortable putting it in a letter, but I don't know if that amounts to bail or a ticket to another country or, you know, money to a cause or.
- [31:17]
Deborah Treisman
Yeah, money to help out if you get in trouble, I guess.
- [31:22]
But it's interesting.
- [31:23]
It is interesting because he can't say anything. He doesn't feel safe to say anything. He doesn't actually want to encourage this young man to get into trouble.
- [31:33]
David Sedaris
Well, when he says in the letter, make sure that you burn this after you read it. But this was sad to me too. I hope I do not offend if I hear. Use the phrase empty gesture. Not only would Jay's situation be made worse, so might that of your mother, father, sister, grandmother, grandfather, et cetera, et cetera. I just think that must have really hurt the grandfather to include himself. It actually surprised me a little bit. Like, I thought he would say grandmother and leave himself off the list so.
- [32:07]
Deborah Treisman
As not to guilt the grandson.
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David Sedaris
Yeah.
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Or to suggest that it didn't matter. You know, if they came after him, it wouldn't matter. He would gladly.
- [32:16]
Deborah Treisman
It clearly does matter.
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David Sedaris
Forfeit himself.
- [32:18]
Deborah Treisman
He has given up.
- [32:19]
David Sedaris
Yeah. There's a timidity.
- [32:22]
But see, again, too, when you're older.
- [32:24]
Then you're sort of allowed. You're allowed. The grandfather's. He's retired. Do you know what I mean?
- [32:33]
So he's retired from watching the geese activism. He's retired from fighting back. He's retired.
- [32:41]
He just. He's retired in every sense, but he hasn't retired from love.
- [32:45]
Deborah Treisman
Yeah.
- [32:45]
David Sedaris
You know.
- [32:46]
Deborah Treisman
Yeah. It's just hard to say if the mess. If. If the story has a message. It's hard to say if that message is nothing we can do. Look at this. We went on our marches, we wrote our letters, we called our senator. It didn't help, didn't change anything, and no one was persuaded. Or if the message is, look, there's a little glimmer here of possibility of someone possibly being able to change things.
- [33:13]
David Sedaris
I see the message as the glimmer.
- [33:15]
Just because George, he's not a nihilistic person. I mean, I didn't feel like Don't Try would be a subtitle for this.
- [33:26]
Deborah Treisman
Story, even though that's what he's basically saying for the entire letter until that very ending, you know, but there's a.
- [33:35]
David Sedaris
Moment when he has to look. When we all have to look at ourselves reading this story and think we all saw that moment, and we're seeing.
- [33:43]
It again and again, and what are we doing?
- [33:45]
We're sitting in this room and we're sitting and recording conversation, and we're not doing anything. Right. Like, I mean, it's hard. And another thing I like about George, he. He's not like, the whole story would.
- [34:03]
Have been ruined if he had put.
- [34:04]
The word Trump in the story. It just would have been ruined.
- [34:07]
Deborah Treisman
Yeah. Yep.
- [34:08]
David Sedaris
But we all kind of get an idea of who it is.
- [34:13]
Deborah Treisman
He put the word dump in there.
- [34:14]
David Sedaris
Yeah, he did.
- [34:15]
Deborah Treisman
It's close enough.
- [34:19]
David Sedaris
Well, I was talking to somebody and.
- [34:21]
They said, you know, when the Muslim.
- [34:22]
Ban went into effect, I protested and I said, how long? Do you know what I mean? And she said, I went to two protests, and it's like, in France, people are out there for months. You know, American and British women are always ready to believe that French women are better for any reason. You know, like those books, French women don't get fat and French women are better mothers and all that stuff. And French women stay in shape by lifting picket signs and marching. That's how they stay in shape.
- [34:54]
But, you know, there are other places.
- [34:56]
In the world where people are unhappy about something and they really give it their all. Like, they don't just go out twice.
- [35:04]
Deborah Treisman
You know, go to the women's march and then come home and wait for a change. Yeah.
- [35:09]
David Sedaris
You know, when you think about, like, marching, like, what does that even do to change anything? You know, maybe it just gives people the illusion. I mean, in France, it felt a little Bit different.
- [35:20]
In most places of the world, people.
- [35:22]
Are afraid of the government, but in France, the government's afraid of the people. I mean, I lived there for a number of years and the government would say, okay, we're going to change the retirement age from 65 to 65 in one week.
- [35:34]
Oh, my God.
- [35:35]
Everybody would get out there.
- [35:37]
Deborah Treisman
The bunch are good at complaining.
- [35:39]
David Sedaris
They really are.
- [35:40]
They really are. And the government every time would say.
- [35:43]
Okay, all right, never mind, we take it back. So there's a precedent set of you get out there and you make some noise and there's a reaction to it and I don't know really since, oh, I don't know, the civil rights movement or something in the United States, if that's actually non protests indication that that has any actual impact on something.
- [36:13]
Deborah Treisman
Yeah, yeah. I mean, there is a tradition of activism in this country, but it has not, it does not seem to have been very effective with Trump.
- [36:24]
David Sedaris
No, but again, I feel like this is real art that reflects that. Like just, I don't know, I was deeply, deeply moved when I read this story. Just deeply sad for the country and for the grandfather.
- [36:42]
Not sad for the grandson so much.
- [36:44]
Because he still kind of has a beating heart in a way, or he still, he still believes, you know, but it made me sad. But it also, it took history, even contemporary history, and just, I don't know, did that remarkable thing where someone is allowed to turn it into art, you know.
- [37:07]
Deborah Treisman
Yeah.
- [37:07]
David Sedaris
Someone else can turn it into, oh, I don't know, craft or an op ed or.
- [37:15]
Deborah Treisman
You know, it's really hard to write a good short story that has a political agenda. Right. It's hard to combine those two things, to combine that art and a political argument, put it that way. I mean, you can include politics, but trying to convince people through art is difficult.
- [37:38]
David Sedaris
But the lottery did that same thing.
- [37:40]
Like it didn't name any names, but.
- [37:42]
We just, we felt it, it felt real. It felt real to us. I mean, I remember when I first read that story, actually, you know, my teacher, I'll never forgive her for this.
- [37:56]
She showed us a movie, then she.
- [37:58]
Had us read the story. You're not supposed to do that.
- [38:03]
Deborah Treisman
The movie's the treat that you get after you read the story in English class. Yeah, yeah. So I wasn't trying to say that George didn't do a good job here. I was trying to say that it's a hard thing to do and he still managed to do it.
- [38:17]
David Sedaris
Well, it's also, I like a story.
- [38:21]
That'S in the form of something else.
- [38:23]
And so I love that it's a story in the form of a letter, and there's no.
- [38:30]
There's one quote in the whole story.
- [38:32]
I believe in his dream when the grandmother says, you know, let us think of what we must do. But I believe that's the only quote in the whole. And it's really hard to keep something moving like that with no dialogue. But I think one of the ways he does it is with parentheses. And again with. You're sprinting some of this. The rhythm of his sentences here. But I imagine that George must be a real kind of person who sits at his desk murmuring, you know, just to get the rhythm, to get the music of it down.
- [39:11]
Deborah Treisman
Yeah. Well, he's a very good reader of his own work.
- [39:13]
David Sedaris
Oh, I think he's a wonderful reader of his own work.
- [39:16]
Deborah Treisman
Yeah. Which isn't always as easy as it sounds. Right.
- [39:20]
David Sedaris
Well, he asked me a number of years ago if I would be a voice on Lincoln and the Bardo.
- [39:26]
Deborah Treisman
Me, too.
- [39:27]
David Sedaris
And so I said, oh, I was so flattered that he would even think of me. And then it turned out to be the second biggest part.
- [39:35]
Deborah Treisman
Oh, wow. Yeah.
- [39:36]
David Sedaris
In the. And ironically, I recorded it. Donald Trump was elected. I stayed up all night. I got zero sleep. And then the next morning, I went and recorded it.
- [39:49]
Deborah Treisman
Wow.
- [39:50]
David Sedaris
Yeah.
- [39:50]
Deborah Treisman
Who were you. Who were you playing? Reading?
- [39:53]
David Sedaris
The gay character who commits suicide.
- [39:55]
Deborah Treisman
Oh. Yeah. So it was cheerful, a cheerful day.
- [39:59]
David Sedaris
It was a super long part, and it was a lot of grammatical. But again, when you're reading somebody else's work, to me anyway, I'm always thinking, if somebody was reading something of mine, for example, I would rather they stay true to my rhythm than emote.
- [40:19]
Deborah Treisman
Yeah.
- [40:20]
David Sedaris
You know, and so that's. I don't know. That's just what I tried to do with. With this.
- [40:28]
And I practice and practice and practice.
- [40:30]
And practice, but then when the tape.
- [40:33]
Is running, then you.
- [40:35]
Deborah Treisman
Then you just have to do it and do your best. I was looking back at dates just to see when exactly George wrote the story. And I saw that he sent me his first draft on March 5, 2020. So he put it out quite quickly by the end of that month. And so when he wrote, it was right before the pandemic, right before we went into lockdown. And I thought about it. I thought, well, he thought it was bad then. You know, how much more was there still to come? You know, the injecting bleach and the no one should, you know, eat Chinese food because the Chinese gave us this. And so on. And just thinking back and thinking he was actually even kind of naive when he wrote this story because he had no idea what was coming. And it sheds a different light on it. It's amazing to think that we are sitting here now having watched someone take a dump in your living room, and we do now just sort of roll our eyes when he's convicted of felonies, whereas back then it was more of a.
- [41:49]
David Sedaris
Back then, it was the first dump.
- [41:51]
Deborah Treisman
Yeah.
- [41:52]
David Sedaris
Do you know what I mean? And now there have been so many of them that we are just. I mean, like, personally, I haven't tuned back into him yet, you know, like, I don't know that I will ever be as tuned in as I was during his first term, when every day it was just, you know, what crazy thing did he say, what's happening today? And I don't know that I can put myself through that again. So in that way, maybe I'm the grandfather.
- [42:31]
Deborah Treisman
Yeah. Well, on the flip side, when you have a clownish leader, as the grandfather calls him, you can get a lot of really dark humor out of it. And that's part of what George does. Here you were talking about. It's such a sad letter, but it's also quite funny. And I guess we have seen some pretty good humor come out of the Trump presidency. That's another form of art that it's engendered, in a way.
- [43:06]
David Sedaris
Yeah. It was good for that. I just think the world of George. I just think he's a genius. Well, I guess technically he is. I mean, he won a MacArthur Award. I met him once at a literary festival, and he was, I don't know, like one of the best humans I've ever met. Just the most generous, kind, funny, helpful, just a prince of a person. And he pushes it, you know, he just keeps pushing stuff. But again, he makes it.
- [43:48]
He connects to the reader in a way, and he makes his characters real.
- [43:53]
And. And he writes about some really brutal things.
- [44:03]
Deborah Treisman
Yeah.
- [44:04]
And this is a story which obviously.
- [44:07]
Has real life inspirations, but you can read it as a kind of. As a moral tale, as a morality tale about how easy it is to become inured to evil, to darkness. Right. You could apply it to many different situations. It's not only politically specific satire, you know, it's a bigger story, I think.
- [44:35]
David Sedaris
And again, I think it would be pretty hard not to relate to the grandfather and not to perhaps blame yourself for, you know, if somebody in the.
- [44:49]
Future says, well, you were there when.
- [44:51]
That happened, what did you do? Like, watch some geese.
- [44:57]
Deborah Treisman
Did some jigsaw puzzles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I actually asked George this week what he thought of the story now, after four years, and he said, my only really thought about that story is that it's a pretty decent picture of how resistance to totalitarianism can get neutralized by despair. We try.
- [45:15]
We try.
- [45:16]
It's hard, we quit. Sometimes that despair seems rational, but it always works in the oppressor's favor. And the way I read the ending now is that the grandfather pops out of passivity and the corresponding despair just a bit, as we all need to do just now. So at the time, I thought of it as in some way a call to arms. Not literally, but psychologically. And I suppose it still is right.
- [45:44]
David Sedaris
Again, it's like 25 years from now, 50 years from now, 100 years from now. I think this story will still. I think it will live. I think it certainly deserves to live because it's not going away, you know.
- [46:00]
Deborah Treisman
Yeah. And it's not instructional, but you learn from it.
- [46:06]
David Sedaris
Well, again, there's. I don't know. I felt slightly ashamed when I read it, and sorrowful, but also in the presence of art. So I felt awe, too, you know, just that somebody in the world was able to take what was going on and turn it into something so brilliant.
- [46:32]
Deborah Treisman
Yeah. Well, thank you so much, David.
- [46:35]
David Sedaris
Thank you, Deborah.
- [46:42]
Deborah Treisman
George Saunders has published a novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the Booker Prize in 2017, and five story collections, including 10th of December, a winner of the Story Prize and the Folio Prize, and Liberation Day, which came out in 2022. He was the 2023 winner of the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. He's been publishing fiction in the New Yorker since 1992. David Sedaris is the author of more than a dozen books of essays, memoirs and diaries, including Me Talk Pretty One Day, which won the Thurber Prize for American Humor, Dress yous Family in Corduroy and Denim, let's Explore Diabetes with Owls and Happy Go Lucky, which was published in 2022. You can hear David Sedaris on two previous episodes of the New Yorker Fiction Podcast, reading and discussing stories by Miranda July and Wells Tower. You can Download more than 200 previous episodes of the New Yorker Fiction Podcast or subscribe to the podcast for free in Apple Podcasts. On the Writer's Voice podcast, you can hear short stories from the magazine read by their authors. You can find the Writer's Voice and other New Yorker podcasts on your podcast app. Tell us what you thought of this program on our Facebook page or rate and review us in Apple Podcasts. This episode of the New Yorker Fiction Podcast was produced by Michelle Moses. I'm Debra Treisman. Thanks for listening.
- [48:03]
I'm Nomi Frye.
- [48:04]
Nomi Frye
I'm Vincent Cunningham.
- [48:05]
Vincent Cunningham
I'm Alex Schwartz. And we are Critics at Large, a podcast from the New Yorker. Guys, what do we do on this show every week?
- [48:11]
Nomi Frye
We look into the startling maw of our culture and try to figure something out.
- [48:15]
Vincent Cunningham
That's right. We take something that's going on in the culture now. Maybe it's a movie, maybe it's a book. Maybe it's just kind of a trend that we see floating in the ether.
- [48:24]
Deborah Treisman
And we expand it across culture as kind of a pattern or a template.
- [48:29]
Nomi Frye
We talked about the midlife crisis, starting with a new book by Miranda July. But then we kind of ended up talking about Dante's Inferno.
- [48:36]
Deborah Treisman
You know, we talked about Kate Middleton, her so called disappearance. And from that we moved into right wing conspiracy theories.
- [48:44]
Nomi Frye
Alex basically promised to explain to me why everybody likes the Beatles.
- [48:48]
Vincent Cunningham
You know, we've also noticed that advice is everywhere. Advice columns, advice giving. And we kind of want to look at why. Join us on Critics at Large from the New Yorker. New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow wherever you get your podcasts.
- [49:05]
David Sedaris
From.
- [49:05]
Deborah Treisman
Prx.