George Saunders (1:55)

I can't wait to get the big cash prize at the end of the game.

Rachel Martin (1:58)

You're gonna be rich, George. Okay, so we're gonna start with memories, and I'm gonna hold up the first three cards and you just pick randomly. How?

George Saunders (2:09)

Give me that middle one that's calling to me. Yes.

Rachel Martin (2:12)

Out of the 1, 2, 3, you go middle right off the bat. Okay, here we go. What's the riskiest thing you got away with as a teenager?

George Saunders (2:23)

Yeah. The riskiest thing as a teenager. Flip. Immediately flip. I'm gonna just contemplate as you just go through that you just did that

Rachel Martin (2:33)

right off the bat. Okay. The riskiest thing I got away with as a teenager. Well, I should first say that I was the eldest child and so very much a prototypical eldest child. So it makes my answer perhaps less interesting than some. Well, I stole my parents car.

George Saunders (2:53)

You stole your parents car?

Rachel Martin (2:55)

I mean, I just made that sound really dramatic. It is true, but I only drove a block, so I'm not quite sure if that counts. But I definitely snuck out and I definitely went when I was a. I definitely went to this senior football party that was being held around the block and ultimately got away with it and only fessed up to it very late in life. And by the time that no one cared, obviously.

George Saunders (3:23)

See, I'm not sure that really counts. Unless you sell it.

Rachel Martin (3:28)

That would have been a good answer. I stole my parents car and then sold it.

George Saunders (3:33)

Actually, I think it's not you. It was not yours. It's so sweet though, that that's your greatest sin. That's.

Rachel Martin (3:37)

I know that sounds so not cool

George Saunders (3:40)

or interesting, but I was the same. I was also very self regulated, but sometimes that got in my way. So my dad had a chicken restaurant in Chicago, franchise, and I was his delivery boy. So one time we got an order late at night and he said, you know, the customer's always right. Take the order. And I went out and the address was fictional. I couldn't find it. It was between two existing houses. So I'm standing there stunned for a minute and suddenly this guy comes out of the bus and pushes me down and grabs the package and runs off. And so the good boy in me was so sort of macho about that. I really, I felt so humiliated that my family's restaurant had been robbed by. Because of my, you know. So I put out some feelers and I was pretty well connected and I figured out who did it. There's a group of four young men who had conspired to do this. And so this is what I got away with. I called or in two cases, went to the house of these guys and said, I challenge you. This is how stupid I was.

Rachel Martin (4:44)

To a duel.

George Saunders (4:45)

No. Perhaps you haven't read Pushkin, my friend, but I said, yeah, come to this place. I'm gonna fight all four of you at once. The risky thing, none of them showed up. That was the blessing.

Rachel Martin (4:58)

So, George, I have so many follow up questions. I mean, first of all, this is. I Don't wanna aid you, but this is before the Internet. You couldn't.

George Saunders (5:04)

Like, way before. This was before phones or food. It was that ancient.

Rachel Martin (5:10)

There was no food available except for the chicken restaurant.

George Saunders (5:14)

That's why we were so in demand.

Rachel Martin (5:18)

So how did you find them? Do you remember how you tracked them?

George Saunders (5:21)

Yeah, no, I do. One thing I had, for some reason, I had. How would you say it? I had connections, both high and low. So I knew a lot of tough kids and a lot of druggie kids. And so I just put out feelers among a few of those and they go, oh, yeah, we know who it is. And it turned out that it was

Rachel Martin (5:38)

because it had been a plot that people knew about.

George Saunders (5:40)

Yeah. And it wasn't directed at me, but of course I took it that way. And so. But for me, I think about it as kind of the hubris that I had. First of all, to take it so personally and to have my ego so easily hurt, and then to think I was gonna go out like a vigilante. And you know what? I don't know what. But so anyway, that was. I was pretty, in retrospect, a pretty strange kid, actually, you know, pretty intense. And this was all ideas based, you know, about my sort of primacy in the universe, you know, so thank goodness I didn't just get killed.

Rachel Martin (6:12)

I mean, yeah, you could have been really hurt. Does that stand out as exceptional in your childhood? Was that an aberration or was that like pretty typical, that kind of, I don't know, strength, courage, ego?

George Saunders (6:25)

Yeah, thank you. But that's very generous. I think it was the one time where the wild inner life, one of the few times where the wild inner life might have intersected with reality. I might have given reality a chance to correct me. But I had a very. I mean, in retrospect, very wild mind. I still do. But I mean, at that point, there was kind of a. I was kind of a sweet kid who believed strongly in whatever appeared in his mind and then tried to act on it. But I think sometimes it was just funny, you know, like doing.

Rachel Martin (6:54)

But also a very strong sense of right and wrong.

George Saunders (6:58)

Yes, yes. Or at least seeking that, you know, and sometimes getting it wrong. But I was always seeking some kind of right, wrong mix in the world.

Rachel Martin (7:07)

Yeah, justice. Okay, next three. One, two or three?

George Saunders (7:11)

Let's take three.

Rachel Martin (7:14)

What's an experience from childhood when you realized your parents were only human? Hmm.

George Saunders (7:24)

Well, I have that. Could I substitute a nun in when I realized nun was really human?

Rachel Martin (7:34)

Sure. Did you have a nun play a Strong role in your life.

George Saunders (7:37)

Well, a very positive one. And also this kind of funnier one, which is I was a reader of the Epistle, and we would do Mass every day. So I'd get out of class early and go into the church.

Rachel Martin (7:50)

Church.

George Saunders (7:50)

And then the priest would give me the selection and I'd practice it. So one day I went to do that Catholic Church.

Rachel Martin (7:57)

This is a Catholic church.

George Saunders (7:57)

Catholic church experience.

Rachel Martin (7:58)

Yes.

George Saunders (7:59)

So there was. I think it's called the narthex. Those little, like, rooms on either side of the altar. So I walked in, I had gym shoes on. I walked in, turned the corner, and there was a priest and nun feverishly making out in the narthex. Yeah. And so. And I knew them both. And the reason I realizing they were human part is I literally paused with one foot in the air, so shocked, like. And they didn't hear me because they were busy. And I then slowly just stepped out and I paused for just a second. And I was actually saying, what's the thing to do here? And I had this feeling, well, of course, of course. And I was an adolescent, I was starting to have some feelings. I thought, well, of course they're human beings. And I had the thought, this doesn't mean that what they're teaching you isn't true. I remember that very distinctly. Like, they could be flawed, not flawed, but they could be flouting the rules in this realm. And yet they could still have a solid basis. And so then I turned around and walked out. And as I walked out, I thought, this is gonna stay with me. And I didn't tell anybody for 25 years or something like that that I.

Rachel Martin (9:07)

But you had that awareness in the moment.

George Saunders (9:09)

Yeah, I did. I almost like to protect them. Cause I like them both separately. They're very nice. So. But that was a nice. Not only a moment of realizing they were human, but realizing that human meant you contained multitudes. You know, you could be wonderful in this phase of your life, and a real stinker in this one. One didn't forgive or negate the other, but you had to keep both in mind, you know, so that was.

Rachel Martin (9:32)

It's also amazing it didn't send you at that age into some kind of existential faith crisis. Like, it's all a pack of lies. And these people who are the curators of the truth are just.

George Saunders (9:44)

That's exactly. Very perceptive. Because that thought did come up and I thought, nah, nah, I reject that. But that's. The first thought is, oh, now I can jettison the whole thing. But I'D had enough positive experiences with nuns, but also with the religion that I wasn't so anxious to jettison it, even as I was on a certain hipster level, I already was, but inside I was still kind of honoring it.

Rachel Martin (10:10)

We don't get a ton of people on this show who have a lot of positive experiences in childhood with organized religion. So can I ask you to say more about what that was like when you say that you had had enough positive experiences built up, that this didn't cause any kind of fissure?

George Saunders (10:29)

Yes. Well, one thing was I had a lot of deep experiences that I would say probably were meditative, that I didn't know to call it that. But in the church, we spent a lot of time in there. And so as somebody with a busy neurotic, I had that experience of. By hour 1.6, you know, of the mass, I'd have burned through all of my thoughts, really, and just be sitting there kind of quietly, and it felt really good, you know, really peaceful. And then also, I think I had this idea. I don't know whether I was taught this or I just came up with it. But hearing a lot of the stories about Jesus and the way he would interact with people who were a little bit on the dark side, you know, like the woman at the well and the. The rich man in the tree or whatever, I thought, oh, he's kind of a novelist. Because what Jesus superpower was, as I understood it, was that he, one could had something going on where he could see you very clearly, I would say now, without a lot of projections about who you were. So he was able to really look into the core of you with affection and not judge. And that has come to seem to me like what a writer does, really. You know, you make up some person, good or bad, and you hang out with them for a couple years, and in the process, you burn through the easy judgments that you would make if you met him in person, probably. And you start to go, okay, well, yeah, that's true. You know, you're a mansplainer. Okay, let's look under that. Why is that you think, you know, oh, you feel this. So you can kind of get to a point where you're not necessarily making a case for them, but you're at least taking in as much data as possible. And so that's how I imagine Jesus manage some of these amazing reactions that he had to people that his culture were very averse to, you know, like, prostitute and so on.

Rachel Martin (12:16)

Thank you for that. Okay, we're gonna get More into that topic in the beliefs round. For sure. Also, I have one word to say that was preoccupying me. Zacchaeus.

George Saunders (12:27)

Zacchaeus.

Rachel Martin (12:28)

Zacchaeus.

George Saunders (12:28)

He's the one in the tree.

Rachel Martin (12:29)

The old man in the tree.

George Saunders (12:30)

Yep, yep, yep. And is that where Jesus says, Is that about the camel? The eye?

Rachel Martin (12:37)

Now I can't remember. All I know is there was a little song that I learned in Bible school. Zacchaeus was a wee little man and he was in the tree, and so that's all I'm doing.

George Saunders (12:47)

He was there because he was too small to see over the crowd. That's right.

Rachel Martin (12:50)

Yeah.

George Saunders (12:51)

Well, good memory. That's a good memory.

Rachel Martin (12:52)

Thanks, George. That's basically why I needed some affirmation from you for remembering I don't know if the Old Testament. Okay, next three. One, two or three.

George Saunders (13:02)

Let's just do one since we're.

Rachel Martin (13:05)

What's something you took away from your first job?

George Saunders (13:07)

My first real job was with my dad's restaurant in Chicago was called Chicken Unlimited, which is a very kind of. And we had this kind of Zen.

Rachel Martin (13:14)

It was bold. You can never run out.

George Saunders (13:16)

That's right. But we had a Zen catchphrase which was chicken Unlimited doesn't stop at chicken. Think about it. So I was the delivery boy. And actually, I think what I learned there was just. I mean, I love to work. I love any kind of work, even if it's, you know, hard or pointless. And so we would. It was a family run business, and so it was very sometimes stressful because people would come in and if it wasn't going well, it was me and my mom, my dad, my two sisters were working, you know, So I think I just learned that love of when in doubt, work. You know, there's a student told me once he was doing a paper on Carl Sandberg. Maybe it was Robert Frost. But anyway, a student. The story is that at a seminar, a poet asked Frost, let's say, this big complicated question about the sonnet. And Frost supposedly said, young man, don't worry, work. And that's what I took away from that first job was when in doubt, like, there'd be times where we were so crowded and we were kind of messing it up. And the only way to get out of that was to close your mind and work, you know. And I saw my dad and mom were very hard workers and I'd see them hustling, you know, and it was really a bonding thing. So, yes, I think that was the biggest thing, was that you can sometimes. And this is Certainly true. Artistically, you can be in a position where you don't see any possible escape. It's just a screwed up story or screwed up novel. Then at that point what you do is you say there's only one doorway out and that's through work, you know, revising and stuff. And then what's beautiful is sometimes this miraculous fix can appear that you never in a million years could have thought your way to or aspired your way to, but you can only work your way to it, you know, so, yeah,

Rachel Martin (15:07)

I mean, you've also, you've worked a lot. You've had like a lot of very difficult physical jobs in your life.

George Saunders (15:16)

I mean, I'm 18 years old and look at me, you know, look what it's done to me. It's

Rachel Martin (15:22)

in the mines.

George Saunders (15:23)

Yeah, in the mines, that's right. But can I tell you, there's one P.S. i should say about that Robert Frost.

Rachel Martin (15:27)

Tell me.

George Saunders (15:27)

Because I went around and told that story for years. Cause it so perfectly describes my approach to writing. Don't worry work. You know, all the conceptual things. Don't worry, you don't have to. And then at some point a Frost scholar came up to me and said, you know, actually he didn't say that. He said, don't work, worry. So, yeah.

Rachel Martin (15:46)

Wait, what? That's horrible.

George Saunders (15:48)

That's horrible.

Rachel Martin (15:49)

I'm gonna go back to the other version.

George Saunders (15:51)

Yeah, I do. I don't have any faith in the second version. Although I think probably what he meant was, you know, rumination or kind of contemplation as part of the writer's job. You don't have to be typing in order, but I don't know.

Rachel Martin (16:03)

But I guess my follow up question was as someone who has done so much, you have like done very physical manual labor in your life. And then you became a person whose work is in the interior. It's ideas work, it's intellectual work. Do you, do you find that you need to balance, like, does every once in a while, do you need to just get in your body in a different way and out of your head?

George Saunders (16:27)

Yeah, I mean, well, we, I do a lot of stuff. We don't hire out a lot of work, you know, like, we. Some. But mostly I'm, you know, I'm like, I like to clean the house and I like to do the toilets. So I mean, so I'm. I do find that I'm just kind of. I don't like those things at all. No, I don't like them, but I. But I do. But I hate Hastening Back to Chicken Unlimited there's something about being and lost in a task is really nice for me because my mind is very active and to be physically engaged with anything really, it can be the smallest, silliest thing. It does something nice to the mind and also creatively. There's a lot of times where really good solutions come when you're doing something else, you know, when you're whatever, mopping, you know, then suddenly the story will kind of. It almost feels like it sneaks up behind you, goes, here's the answer. You know, you have to stop looking

Rachel Martin (17:20)

for a little bit and do something else. And then it comes. Yeah, that makes sense to me.

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Rachel Martin (19:03)

I want to pull out of the game and talk about your newest book vigil. And if I can attempt to summarize the plot. There is a man on his deathbed, an oil executive named K.J. boone, right? And he is visited by this she's not really an angel, she's a woman who is. She has already died and it is her job to chaperone this man into the next life or just onto the other side of living.

George Saunders (19:36)

That's perfect.

Rachel Martin (19:37)

He is a person who's done some damage in his time on this earth.

George Saunders (19:42)

Yes.

Rachel Martin (19:43)

What? I guess my first question is what is her? Is her job to help him See the error of his ways or to be a neutral force to just usher him through this inevitability.

George Saunders (20:01)

Well, you put your finger on the really kind of the center of the book. She would say her job is to comfort him. She doesn't really define what that means. And I think what we come to find is she's not that good at her job. She has this idea that if she just shows up and says, all is well, the dying person will be comforted, which I'm sure in some cases is true. She had an experience at her death that it caused her to be super sympathetic for all human beings. And her thing is that basically, if you really look closely at it from the angel point of view, everything good about you, everything not so good about you, your ability to change what's good about you or bad about you, all of those things kind of came to you when you were. When. We don't know, before birth, for sure. So she's not a big fan of this idea of free will. She thinks basically because we're so predisposed to certain things and even our ability to adjust the predisposition is predisposed. The only position is to be very, very merciful towards human beings, even bad ones. That's her position.

Rachel Martin (21:10)

Is it your position?

George Saunders (21:11)

Well, sometimes, you know, I mean, I had this. Speaking of the Catholic days, the first intimation I had of this. And even then I knew it was a weird and maybe hard to accept idea, but in first grade, I was a really good reader just because I just could read, like, almost instantly. And the nuns loved it, and I loved that. And it was. Every day was a joy. You know, maybe you had a similar thing. You know, you just show up to be praised, basically, you know, do this.

Rachel Martin (21:37)

I did like that as a young person. Right.

George Saunders (21:39)

Yeah, it's the best. So. But. So one day, you know, after three or four days of this celebration, I look over and a good friend of mine is. He's not a good reader. He maybe he might have been dyslexic. I'm not sure he really struggling, you know, Very articulate, intelligent kid, but he just couldn't read, and he was lagging behind the others, and the nuns didn't like that. And that was the shadow side of the nuns, as they were rigorous and could be harsh. So at the end of one long day, I just. We were getting ready to pack it up, and I looked over and I see him with his body kind of turned away and he's crying, you know, and I. And there's something in that moment I felt bad for him, but I also felt bad about myself for being so triumphant, you know, like for all the. All I've been thinking of these days is how lucky I was to be me, you know, to be a good reader. And I never thought of luck because

Rachel Martin (22:27)

according to this theory, it was all baked inside you from the get go.

George Saunders (22:30)

And I was thriving and he wasn't. And something about that just hit me mostly just how there wasn't justification for me feeling so great about myself because in the womb I hadn't checked off the box, say, make me the best reader. I just showed up. So that idea really kind of stuck with me. And for a while it gave me some real questions about accomplishment. Like if, you know, if you are sort of pre baked not only with skills, but with a lot of ability to make the skills better or with a good work ethic, that's great. But at what point do you get to say, I did that? You know? Now on the other hand, there's another character in the book, this Frenchman who says, that's nonsense, you can't live like that. And I agree with him as well, you know, you can't.

Rachel Martin (23:16)

Well, yeah, because people have to be held accountable for their bad behavior.

George Saunders (23:19)

That's right. And you have to develop your own positive traits too. You can't just kind of flow through. So really the book was sort of an offloading of these two ideas I've had that are really in direct contradiction. You know, I think some philosophers say it's the absolute view which is hers versus the relative view which is the one we walk around living in.

Rachel Martin (23:39)

How does the space between living and dying help you tell those kinds of stories? Because it's a place you like to think about a lot.

George Saunders (23:49)

I do, I do. I mean, to me, both of the books kind of take place in a waiting room, like a waiting room where the judgment is next. But we don't really get to see that process at all. We're just in a waiting room that seems to be occupied by people whose lives were such that they didn't die at peace. You know, they had some kind of agitation or sense of deprivation or something that keeps them kind of resonating. There's a Buddhist idea that when we're alive and we're in these bodies, that's a blessing because the mind is so powerful and neurotic. But when in a body, it's kind of contained. So they always say it's like you're like a wild horse. The mind is like A wild horse tied to a fence as long as you're in a body. But then when you die in that liminal space, the rope gets cut and your mind is just supersized. And, you know, they say in some of these teachings that, like, if you think of a foreign city, you go there, or if you have occasion to have a negative feeling, it becomes demons, you know, or if you have a happy feeling, it becomes heaven. So I think these people are all in kind of that mode where they're. They just didn't. I would say maybe it's that in life there was some kind of denial that was going on, and so they didn't die at peace. And so they. They're hanging out in this. In this waiting room. But on the more practical side, I. I started out my writing career as kind of a realist. Like, I loved Hemingway and Joyce and all those guys, but I just couldn't do it. When I would do that, try to write about my life, it was just so boring, you know. So what I found out was if I put in early, if I put in a theme park, things got fun. You know, you can write in Hemingway's voice, but you said it in the Virgin Mary theme park, and suddenly you're into something kind of funny. So it's really, in some ways, it's just a device to get more energy and more fun into the book.

Rachel Martin (25:41)

So it's just a helpful construct. It's not something you actually believe.

George Saunders (25:47)

I don't know what I believe about after death. I mean, I would be surprised if mental phenomenon just stopped. And anecdotally, you know, from all these near death things, it sounds like what happens is kind of like that Buddhist thing where your mind, you know, the body steps aside and the mind goes berserk for a while. But, you know, in a way, if you say, okay, let's make a world where our neuroses get supersized and basically we just become our neuroses. That's a pretty good description of a day, really. I mean.

Rachel Martin (26:14)

I mean, tell me about it. Yes.

George Saunders (26:16)

Yeah. So if you want to talk about human psychology, human desire, it's not a bad. Liminal space isn't a bad place to do it.

Rachel Martin (26:23)

Yeah, I've worked through eight neuroses already today, and it's only, you know, the afternoon.

George Saunders (26:27)

Oh, they'll come back.

Rachel Martin (26:31)

Okay, we are moving to round two. Round two cards are blue. Insights, George Saunders. One, two or three?

George Saunders (26:42)

Two, please.

Rachel Martin (26:44)

When have you been in over your head?

George Saunders (26:47)

Well, I think the.

Rachel Martin (26:50)

Well, probably.

George Saunders (26:51)

And this is A positive form. But when we first had our daughter, Paula and I got married and we got engaged in three weeks in the romantic Syracuse ambiance, and then pregnant on the honeymoon, and then difficult first pregnancy. So we were, you know.

Rachel Martin (27:05)

Did your wife. You guys met in undergrad at your.

George Saunders (27:08)

We did. No, we met actually at the MFA program in Syracuse. Yeah.

Rachel Martin (27:11)

Got it.

George Saunders (27:12)

She's a really wonderful, wonderful writer.

Rachel Martin (27:13)

Yes. Yeah.

George Saunders (27:14)

So she was in your life.

Rachel Martin (27:14)

You've been together a long time and you started a family very young. Yeah.

George Saunders (27:17)

Right. So that period where we. I'm guessing it's around 1988, and we had two adorable daughters at home and no money, and I think we both felt like, oh. So this life that we imagined for ourselves of being, you know, high powered writers traveling around the world at ease, that's not gonna happen. Because now we're really into the fight here. You know, can we. We just bought a little house and we're just scrambling. Every. Every paycheck was a scramble. And so that was a. I mean, it was tough in some ways, but it was also so beautiful, you know, to have all those kind of, I don't know, like, as a younger person, I. Very ambitious and was really feeling my lack of accomplishment, you know, I was, why, why am I. Why are people pulling away from me? Why are they getting it? And I'm not getting it. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. Maybe there's something wrong with me. And in this story, because your stuff

Rachel Martin (28:14)

wasn't hitting, like you had an idea of what you wanted your career to be by certain ages or benchmarks, and it wasn't lining up the way you

George Saunders (28:21)

wanted or at that point even. I just hadn't written a story that I liked for a long time, you know, And I thought, well, that's weird, you know, and for a young artist, you know, to have a period where you're not in touch with your essentialness is really painful. You know, like, you write something, anybody could write that, where's my specialness? Or where's my, my. You know, so that was rough. And. But then the, the kind of upside was I just couldn't worry about that at that point. You know, we. We had. We were really scrambling. Every month was we're bouncing checks and we were, you know, you have that. I still had this kind of ingrained credit card flinch, you know, where you hand the credit card over and you just make yourself look very respectable. And then, you know, and when it

Rachel Martin (29:00)

clears it up and then when it doesn't, it's so Embarrassing.

George Saunders (29:03)

Oh, my God. And then if it does, you feel like hugging the person, you know, so it was that kind of a period. But I guess the thing that was. So what I found out was to be in over your head is kind of clarifying because there were no distractions. It was just pure work, you know,

Rachel Martin (29:23)

and you were still young. I mean, there's. So you imagine this too shall pass, like this chapter will end. Like I'm working towards something where things get better.

George Saunders (29:34)

Yes. But also, you know, it was nice, Rachel, at that point, and this was the first time it ever happened to me, was I thought it will end, but it might not end well. In other words, the boat with my writing dream on, it might just sail out of sight and I'm going to be fine. I think in the past, I just couldn't really imagine myself without some accomplishment to tie my ego to. But in that case, with the kids and everything, I just thought, well, it's all right. You're not the first person whose artistic dream didn't come true, so man up. And, you know, and there was something very sweet about that. And also, I think in a kind of paradoxical way, it was really good for my writing because it was like abandoned hope, you know, and when you abandon hope, it's kind of amazing. You don't. You.

Rachel Martin (30:18)

Well, you surrender expectation around it and you just get back to doing it for the love of it.

George Saunders (30:22)

Exactly. And you also, in that mode, you're able to see what you really do well.

Rachel Martin (30:26)

Yeah.

George Saunders (30:27)

Whereas I think when you're in a more luxurious, like in grad school, where, you know, seem like success was right on the cusp or right on the horizon, then you do things. There's a lot of discretionary effort. Maybe I'll write like Faulkner this week. Maybe I'll try to do a song cycle, you know, and then when once the shit hit the fan, it was kind of like, oh, no, no, no. You see, if there's anything you can do that has any charm in it, and most days there isn't, but if there is, do that. That was really. That was really good simplifying.

Rachel Martin (30:59)

Do you remember what you wrote after you came to that revelation? Do you remember the first thing you wrote that was like, oh, there it is.

George Saunders (31:05)

No, I tell the story a lot, but I had written a 700 page novel about a wedding in Mexico that was a train wreck and I gave it to Paula and she, you know, she can't lie. And so she just got about five pages in and just had her head in her hands. And so I went into work the next day, really having a band on a hope, just whatever. And there was a conference call, and I was supposed to be the note taker, and there was nothing going on. So I just wrote these kind of scatological Seussian poems that were pretty funny, you know. And I draw an illustration and then brought those home. And she read those and loved them. She laughed out loud at them, you know. So then I said, okay, I'm gonna write a story like that. And I went and wrote this story called the Wavemaker Falters, which is in my first book. Just. And the only, like, instruction was, be funny. That's it. Be funny. And then what I found out was, if I'm trying to be funny, the meaning will arrive. But I never knew that before. I thought I had to know the meaning and have it all figured out,

Rachel Martin (32:02)

and then hand it. And then the jokes come in, the funniness comes in at the periphery.

George Saunders (32:07)

But, yes, it was the other way around. So if I just. Funny, I was funny then. And weirdly, all the stuff we're talking about, this kind of economic challenges that all came into the story as well. Just unsummoned, you know, because I was concentrating on trying to be entertaining in some way.

Rachel Martin (32:26)

It worked out. George Saunders.

George Saunders (32:28)

So far, so good. Knock on wood.

Rachel Martin (32:32)

Okay, three new cards. One, two or three?

George Saunders (32:35)

Three, please.

Rachel Martin (32:36)

Three. Has ambition ever led you astray?

George Saunders (32:44)

Well, I hate to say no, but I think the answer is no.

Rachel Martin (32:46)

Say no. What a lovely thing.

George Saunders (32:48)

I don't think it has. And I tell my students, if you have ambition, the worst thing you can do is deny it in an attempt to be a good person. Because ambition is ambition. That word sounds like Gordon Gekko or whatever that guy's name is. But ambition, if you took the name off it, it's kind of a love for life. It's kind of a life energy. It's kind of a aspiration to bring out the best in yourself. So I don't think it's really led

Rachel Martin (33:14)

me astray much, what you said, denying it is dangerous. How does that manifest? If you are an ambitious person and you don't acknowledge it, it's kind of

George Saunders (33:26)

like, you know, if you were. I mean, not to invoke a violent metaphor, but if a person is in an alley getting beat up and they notice they're only using one hand and the other hand's behind their back, that's really silly. You bring out both hands, you know. So ambition, because it's such a source of energy, I Think for all of us, you know, I mean, just natural, so to say, yeah, I'll take it, I'll use it, and I'm not gonna bow down to it. I'm not going to treat it as. God, it takes so much to make a work of art that matters, or that even not matters, that expresses who you are. It takes so much energy. You can say, I'm going to let the ambition in. I'm going to keep it on a short leash. I'm going to use it to get through this writing session, and I'm going to let it dissipate.

Rachel Martin (34:11)

Yeah, that's the key, though, right? It's like, let it take you. Let it take you. Let it be productive and then let it go.

George Saunders (34:18)

Send it on its way. Exactly. I mean, it's funny the state of mind you're in when you're writing. I am. It's like kind of. You can be really beautiful and pure and concept free. And I'll hit a nice moment in the story, make a nice fix, and a little voice will go, oh, the New Yorker's gonna love that. You know, and here you go. Yeah.

Rachel Martin (34:37)

Okay.

George Saunders (34:38)

Welcome to the table. Now get out of the way. You know, so I think to sort of say, like, well, whatever your mental process is, I bless it and I'm gonna use it. And then I'm not gonna get. But I'm also not gonna, I guess, go on autopilot, you know, if you say ambition is it, I'm always gonna be ambitious. That's nice, because you don't have to worry anymore. But it's dangerous because now you're on autopilot and you just become that guy, you know?

Rachel Martin (35:03)

Yeah. Last one in this round. One, two or three?

George Saunders (35:08)

One, please.

Rachel Martin (35:10)

Is there anything you long for?

George Saunders (35:13)

Oh, God, yeah. I long to write the book I was meant to write, which I feel like I haven't done yet. I'm gonna. But I haven't feel like. But mostly I think. I mean, this is a kind of a cheesy answer, but I've had moments in my life, sometimes through meditation, sometimes just through good fortune, of feeling myself recede, you know, in a really pleasant way. Those moments in the church when the mind would go quiet, that happened. And I really long for that. And, you know, that feeling of like, it's really in. The Catholic Church used to say, the Mass has ended. I'll go in peace. We must diminish and Christ increase. And I think with that feeling of having your ego and your active mind be quiet. I would like to get there sooner rather than later. So I didn't even think longing applies to that.

Rachel Martin (36:04)

Yeah, that's just part of that's built into your profession, right? You have to come out and you have to be this esteemed writer and people read the intros and greatest writer ever, and you get all these laudatory phrases thrown your way and it's a lot. And so it makes sense to me that after doing that, yes, you love it. You love it, and it's important. The validation feels good and it keeps you going and. And then I, I can understand the impulse to then need to disappear and. Yeah, the word diminishment is interesting.

George Saunders (36:42)

It's kind of a sugar buzz and, you know, and like. A sugar buzz or like, it's like having your birthday every day and then, and then when it's not your birthday, like, huh, Nobody brought me anything, you know, so. But then again, you know, after all these years of doing it, part of it is to go. And I'm sure you experience this too. Like you, you have all that validation and that good feeling, and then if it stops or pauses or diminishes in some way, then there's a moment there where you can say to yourself, oh, yeah, that's normal. You know, I ate. I ate a Butterfinger every day for the last six weeks. Now I don't get one. There's going to be some adjustment, you know, and so that. That I get. I suppose it's just like grounding yourself in the particulars of your work as opposed to the kind of, you know, looking for approbation or whatever, Right?

Rachel Martin (37:29)

The payoff. It has to be about the actual work and not the payoff.

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Rachel Martin (38:51)

Beliefs Last round. Three new cards. One, two or three?

George Saunders (38:55)

Two, please.

Rachel Martin (38:58)

Who or what is your moral compass?

George Saunders (39:02)

Well, I mean, my wife Paula is for sure. That's the honest answer. Yeah, yeah. We've been together a long time, through a lot of things and you know, she's honest with me and she has that. I think it's a beautiful quality of being able to see you clearly critique you, praise you and come out on the other side with affection, no matter what, you know, which. So for me that was kind of a. I think when I was younger I had the idea that love meant someone always liked you 100 or always praised you 100%. Yeah. You know, and so to meet her when we were younger and kind of go, oh, actually love means she sees you and she trusts that if she gives you her honest opinion, you'll know that she still cares. Which is kind of obvious. But for me it was. I always thought if someone, if you disagreed with somebody, it must be no good.

Rachel Martin (39:55)

You know, did you luck out with that or did you recognize that quality in her when you.

George Saunders (40:02)

Yeah, that's a good question. I think both. I think I must. I think at some deep cellular level. I recognize it because there were times when we got engaged really quickly and it was quite beautiful and fireworks, but also like, it wasn't always easy. And I remember just at one point thinking, do not lose this person because you'll regret it the rest of your life. It was almost like my 40 year old self was communicating to my younger self, saying, no, no, no, no, no, stop the bullshit. You have some ability to discern truth here. This is the most interesting person you've ever met. So you stick here. And so that was. Yeah, that was great. You know, it's interesting, there was one other time because I like this idea that, you know, a person is many different people at once and there's a chorus of us, you know, inside our heads. And I've had that occasion was one where an older, wiser person spoke directly to me and said, now put all the nonsense aside and marry this woman. And then the other time was I was in Pakistan and I was getting ready to. I was trying to go into the war. I had met these mujahedeen and was negotiating with them to take me into

Rachel Martin (41:10)

Afghanistan, which what years are we talking about?

George Saunders (41:12)

They're fighting the Russians. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I said, okay, I'll take you and the only thing he said was, you can't wear your glasses because the gun shop gunships, the Russian ships will see the glint. Yeah, okay. But I was all set. I was going the next morning and I was in the hotel and I just had this dark night of the Seoul. And what this older person said to me, two things. One is, if you go in there and get killed, your mom's. You're gonna break your mother's heart, you know, because she doesn't even know you're there. Okay. And. And then I said, yeah, but, but Hemingway, you know, he would, he was, he would do it. And that, that wiser voice said to me, okay, smartass, why do you. Why do you think Hemingway is famous? Because he was in a war. There were a lot of people in a war, that first world war. Why do you think he's as well? Because he was a great writer. Exactly. Do you want to be a guy who had been in a war or do you want to be a great writer? I said, well, the latter. Okay, then. Then write great. You know, kind of the.

Rachel Martin (42:14)

Right.

George Saunders (42:14)

And so I didn't go. I did. I bravely ran away. And for me at that age, it was so hard to chicken out, which I definitely did. But that guy, wise voice was like, no, okay, you can go ahead and go, you know, it won't help.

Rachel Martin (42:27)

Wait, who was that person again?

George Saunders (42:29)

It was me.

Rachel Martin (42:30)

Wait, no, but the guy who said that. No, it was you.

George Saunders (42:32)

It was me.

Rachel Martin (42:32)

Oh, it was you.

George Saunders (42:33)

It was me in my head. Yeah, no, that's what I'm saying. I was sitting in that room alone, obsessing, and I just. And I could feel this source of some kind of wisdom saying, wow, okay. And you know what? And what really was the real mantra was be honest for once. Let's hone in on what you really want, which is you want to be a good writer. And so there was some kind of no nonsense voice that I had access to on those two occasions, even though my actual 28, 25 year old self was just a mess, you know, and kind of confused. So.

Rachel Martin (43:03)

Oh my God. Can I just tell you? I had that same conversation, but I, I was the jerk who just went anyway. Literally.

George Saunders (43:10)

Where did you.

Rachel Martin (43:10)

Afghanistan.

George Saunders (43:11)

What did you do? You went to Afghanistan?

Rachel Martin (43:13)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but like in the US war. But I remember the phone call with my parents and my dad saying, I wish you would make a different choice.

George Saunders (43:21)

Wow.

Rachel Martin (43:21)

Which is the. What would happen to me and I would break my mother and my father's heart. And I still went and Also, it was a total ego thing. Like, that was how I thought I was gonna be a great journalist and reporter. And granted, war reporting and conflict reporting, it's an important thing to do. It is very important. It's incredibly valuable. But there was also just so much ego attached to having been a person who did it. You know what I mean? Not even the doing of it. To be a person who had done it.

George Saunders (43:51)

Yes. And I always wanted to be someone who had done it and got slightly injured, but not too bad. So I had to. You know, that was. But on the other hand, you know, you're making a beautiful case because you're here where you are, partly because you took that path, and people do have to go do that. You know, the one thing is, I, at that point, was not any kind of journalist. I just was a person going in there. So it was with me. There was no way that that was gonna turn into a piece of journalism or reportage. It just wasn't.

Rachel Martin (44:18)

Well, you don't know what you could have written as a result of it.

George Saunders (44:20)

Well, I might have, but I wasn't writing at that point. I was, you know, and I had no.

Rachel Martin (44:25)

You were in the headspace of accruing experiences that you thought were gonna build you into the kind of person who would be a. Yeah.

George Saunders (44:32)

Or even that. And also even that. To have. To have done it. I wanted to come back and say, yeah, I just came back from Afghanistan. It was gnarly, and, you know, I got a little bit of a hitch in my ankle.

Rachel Martin (44:43)

Do you want to see the splinter right now?

George Saunders (44:46)

I'm sure that was a beautiful, deep experience for you, and it genuinely was the person that you are.

Rachel Martin (44:50)

It did indeed.

George Saunders (44:51)

So I'm glad you went, but I'm glad I. And came back safely. And I'm glad I didn't go.

Rachel Martin (44:56)

It worked out the way it was supposed be to.

George Saunders (44:58)

Yes.

Rachel Martin (44:58)

Okay, one more in this round. 1, 2, or 3.

George Saunders (45:02)

I'm still thinking about that conversation with your parents. That must have. Yeah, yeah.

Rachel Martin (45:07)

And now I'm a parent, and so, of course, I imagine my kids saying that.

George Saunders (45:11)

Yeah. Did they bless it at the end and okay, you have to do it. Or. They weren't mad, but they were.

Rachel Martin (45:16)

It's terrifying. My parents had no concept of what. That wasn't part of their world. Like, they, you know, Southeast Idaho. They had lived there for most of their life. They didn't have examples of people who did this. And so it was utterly terrifying.

George Saunders (45:32)

You almost have been relieved when you came back safely.

Rachel Martin (45:35)

They were. And Only. And of course, in the moment, I didn't. I was like, of course I was gonna be fine. And only in retrospect and when you grow older do you realize, my God, what stupid risks. I mean, I took so many stupid risks. Absolutely crazy things.

George Saunders (45:49)

Well, that's the crazy part of life. As you do get older, as you see that there is a huge level of luck, that as a young person, maybe for Darwinian reasons, you don't really want to believe in luck. You believe in destiny. You know, I remember one time being up in Wisconsin with my cousin. There was a. I was. It was in high school, and there was a cliff in the. In this river down below. I'm like, oh, we should jump in.

Rachel Martin (46:13)

That's cool.

George Saunders (46:13)

That'd be cool, you know? And again, this sort of macho thing. And he's like, I don't. We don't know how deep that water is. I'm like, oh, I'm sure it's fine. And so he said, that's really stupid. We don't know how. And so we start walking out to the car, and I turned around and I sprinted and went off the cliff. And I mean, luckily it was deep enough to, you know. But, I mean, that was the kind of.

Rachel Martin (46:36)

That's. That same kid who's like, I will fight all four of you chicken stealers.

George Saunders (46:42)

It's stupid. But the only reason was the ego said, nothing negative can happen to you, you know, and as you get older, like, no, everything negative can happen, you know? And so every day that it doesn't, you should be grateful.

Rachel Martin (46:55)

That's right. That's right. One, two or three.

George Saunders (47:00)

Three.

Rachel Martin (47:02)

How have your feelings about death changed over time?

George Saunders (47:06)

Oh, I like that one quote. I'm not afraid of death. I just don't want to be there when it happens. You know, they've gotten, I think, probably in some ways gentler, because I can see that it's going to happen, and it's going to happen in the way that everything happens. You know, I mean, it's gonna be gradual and then all at once. So I think I'm. I'm more interested in it than I've ever been, you know, maybe from writing these books, like, you know, it'll be a big joke, you know, when I get to the end and it's nothing, it's not interesting at all, or it's

Rachel Martin (47:46)

the pearly G. So it is an increasingly fascinating thing for you to think about because of its inevitability in your life, but it sounds like it is not a Harrowing kind of mental preoccupation.

George Saunders (48:01)

No, no, no, it really is. I mean, from reading my work, you would think so, but to me, it's just kind of. Every so often I'll just have a feeling like, wow, it seems impossible that that's true. That we're gonna die. Yeah. Yeah. I've always been here, you know, and it's been fine. So that. That is. I mean, I think at this point, I'll say I'm struggling more with the deaths of, you know, your love people.

Rachel Martin (48:27)

Yeah.

George Saunders (48:27)

Other people. Yeah. That. My aunts and uncles and pets, you know, that have gone on. And that is rough. But. Yeah. What are your. Let me flip. Let me flip. I can't flip. I won't flip. But I'll just ask you, what do you think? How have your feelings about it?

Rachel Martin (48:44)

I think about it quite a lot. And I've said this before. I even go so far as I sort of. This is so dark. But I do sort of imagine. I try to imagine the not being, and I try it on for size, which is impossible, but I still try. And then I imagine, because where my thoughts go are to my kids and my husband and my family, and they will feel sad. And so I. I think about them, and then I think about them then being okay. It's like I work through the whole thing, and I'm like, it's gonna be fine.

George Saunders (49:22)

That's nice.

Rachel Martin (49:23)

And then it makes me feel better about the whole thing.

George Saunders (49:26)

Right. Cause that's true, actually. It will be fine.

Rachel Martin (49:29)

And trying it on for size, I've taught myself that that's not a grim thing.

George Saunders (49:35)

Not at all.

Rachel Martin (49:35)

No.

George Saunders (49:36)

It's. Because in the day is. I mean, what a day, when you say, yeah, it is gonna happen, but it hasn't happened yet.

Rachel Martin (49:42)

It hasn't happened yet. We're still here. We get to live this day.

George Saunders (49:47)

Yeah.

Rachel Martin (49:49)

Last one. One, two, or three.

George Saunders (49:51)

I'm gonna do two, unless you advise otherwise.

Rachel Martin (49:57)

No, I'm gonna. We're letting the cards control the conversation. What's an answer you've stopped searching for?

George Saunders (50:12)

I don't think there is one.

Rachel Martin (50:13)

Skip it.

George Saunders (50:14)

Really? Yeah. Skipping it.

Rachel Martin (50:15)

We're not even gonna. Okay, now I have to. Okay, now I am. I am editing here. All right, fine. I'm gonna do this one.

George Saunders (50:23)

Okay.

Rachel Martin (50:24)

It's very earnest, but I like this question. What's an experience you wish you could give every person?

George Saunders (50:31)

Hmm. Be. I don't know why I'm saying that. Being forgiven, that I think, you know, or accepted. In other words, having somebody. Because I've had so many people like this in my life who took me just as I am and accepted me and loved me and especially when I was young. And that, I mean, first and maybe most formidably when I was young, the story I was going to tell you earlier about my mother and this is, she did this over and over. But one time when I was about 13, I got the responsibility of going out with an uncle and an aunt to cut down a Christmas tree and bring it home. That was like my first manly, you know, like job. So I picked out this total honker of a tree. It looked great in place, and when I got it home, it was just full of gaps, you know. And my mom said, oh, well, that's. Yeah, yeah, that's good, you know. And it was so. It was like the Charlie Brown tree, but four times bigger. And so what she did was she sat up at night and she repaired it. She literally took. She cut part of it off, drilled holes and retrofit the branches in to make this beautiful triangular shaped tree. And now on the one hand, I mean, she was trying pretty hard for me. Maybe she'd have just let me, you know. But what I really felt from that was that she really didn't want me to have that first experience, be yellow, a bad experience. And this sort of idea that, well, things are work, even mistakes are workable. That was, that was what I took from that, you know. So I wish that everybody would have experiences like that where, you know, just because it seemed like so many painful or even violent experiences come from a person's feeling that nobody could accept them or forgive them or like them.

Rachel Martin (52:33)

Right.

George Saunders (52:33)

And so I think if. If you had the experience even once of somebody abiding with you, I love that word, abiding with you through some difficulty, then you come to at least nominally expect that from the world.

Rachel Martin (52:45)

So there's something more meaningful. Abiding is more than just accompanying. Abiding?

George Saunders (52:54)

Yeah.

Rachel Martin (52:54)

What do you love about that word?

George Saunders (52:57)

Well, I think it's accompanying with hope, you know, or with. Or even like, you know, I'll give you another example of what I'm talking about. I had a high school, I was a really bad student. I didn't study at all, and the grades reflected it. And I didn't really. I wasn't really planning to go to college, but I had this high school teacher, two of them, Joe and Sherry Limbum, who kind of saw something in me and were encouraging me to try to go to college. So as part of this process, Joe who was a geology teacher, invited me to the. This Chicago citywide Science Fair, and. Which I had nothing to do. I, you know, had no entry at all. So we go, and it's just amazing. Like, you know, these kids my age were, like, I don't know, building nuclear reactors. And, I mean, they were doing amazing things. And I. We walked through there, and I was so. I really loved him and idolized him, and I was kind of feeling a little bit like, oh, God, look at. Why is he with me? I'm such a. You know, I haven't done anything. These kids are years beyond me. You know, I haven't even tried. And the. The beautiful thing that he did for me is we spent that two or three hours together, and he never once in the slightest way intimated that I was less than those kids. We would just go on. And what he did was he praised the individual and he explained why this was a particularly good project. And he. He said to the kids what a great job they'd done. So he knew that I was internalizing all of this. And what he was really, I think, trying to show me was, you know, you've got some work to do. But he did that in the most loving, compassionate way with not a trace of shame about it. We had a great day, you know, and went out to lunch. And I fully internalized that message. And he knew it, and he knew he didn't have to say a single thing about it. And then he got me into college after that, you know, so what I wish for is that everybody has somebody like that in their lives, you know, to. Because he could have crushed me with one thing, with one line about my recalcitrants or my laziness, but he never would go there.

Rachel Martin (55:06)

We end the show the same way every time, with a trip in our memory time machine. In the memory time machine, you revisit one moment from your past. It's not a moment you want to change anything about. It's just a moment you'd like to linger in a little longer.

George Saunders (55:23)

Oh, boy. Wow. That's a gift. Wow. Wow. You know what's funny about that question, actually, Rachel, is I can come up with a bunch of moments, but I can't find. I can't quite. I always want to change something. I want to do something better. Yeah. Yeah. Nope.

Rachel Martin (55:43)

Changing. Not an option.

George Saunders (55:45)

Yeah. Huh. That's really an interesting one, because the idea is that you just want to experience it again.

Rachel Martin (55:50)

That's right.

George Saunders (55:51)

Yeah. Well, I can tell you one. Just a selfish one. I mean, the One that came to mind just as kind of a funny thing is I had a. When I first had the story in the New Yorker, that was a very huge deal. And I think what I would kind of take with me is a little more understanding of what a big deal it was. Because to get a story in the New Yorker probably now, but certainly at that time was harder than getting a novel out. It was really rare, and it changed the whole trajectory of my life in a way that I don't think I knew it would. So if I could go back, I might just.

Rachel Martin (56:24)

Can you tell me about the moment?

George Saunders (56:26)

Well, I had gotten two of these nice rejection letters that were like, this isn't quite it, but send us more. Which was unheard of. So I was actually working as an environmental engineer and I was up at Watertown. No, yeah, Watertown, New York, doing an investigation of a DOD facility that had groundwater contamination. And so we were working these 13, 14 hour days, and I came back to the Microtel where we were staying, and there was a note and it said something. It was kind of like malapropistic. Like New Yorker editor says, thumbs up or something, and I'm like, what are you? What? And the person that took the message

Rachel Martin (57:09)

wasn't there, but it was sort of cryptic.

George Saunders (57:12)

It was a little too cryptic for my taste. So I had to go back into work the next day, and I think at lunch break I managed to call just before cell phones managed to call and got the confirmation. And then I came home and it was a little bittersweet because I'd been away from Paul and the kids for longer than I ever had before, and I felt very sorry for myself. But then when I got home, she had gone around to must have been 10 or 10 dental offices to get New Yorker covers, and she made this kind of Tibetan prayer flag of New Yorker covers. And we had a little cake and a little celebration. So, yeah, that would be. That'd be fun to go back to that.

Rachel Martin (57:46)

That's a lovely thing.

George Saunders (57:48)

See the kids little again.

Rachel Martin (57:49)

Yeah, yeah. George Saunders. His newest novel is called Vigil. It is out now. It's been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for doing this.

George Saunders (58:08)

I had such a good time. Thank you very much, Rachel.

Rachel Martin (58:19)

If you like this episode, check out my conversations with Ocean Vuong or Zadie Smith. Those are two of my very favorite wildcard conversations ever. And both of those writers have got this kind of wisdom and realness that George Saunders also has in spades. You can watch those conversations along with this episode with George Saunders. Or any of our recent conversations on our YouTube channel. Just search for NPRWildcard. This episode was produced by Elisa Zhang and Summer Tomad. It was edited by Dave Blanchard and mastered by Becky Brown. Wildcard's executive producer is Yolanda Sangweni, and our theme music is by Ramtin Arablouei. You can reach out to us@wildcardpr.org we're going to shuffle the deck and be back with more next week. Talk to you then.

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