“Tenth of December” by George Saunders is a collection of short stories that touches on themes from adolescent disobedience and post-conflict PTSD to suicide and death. The stories were often dark, perverse, and emotional. Due to the heavy content of the material, it became hard for me to rally behind many of the stories’ characters.
I felt the stories focused on a more pessimistic view of human nature, one that often alienated me as a reader. The highlight for me was in Escape from Spiderhead. I was fully engaged as the story follows a colony of murderers and explores the gray lines between love, lust and pain. Unfortunately, most of the other stories were too heavy for my taste. Overall, “Tenth of December” left me feeling pretty hopeless.
While it was a worthwhile detour from my normal reading choices, I’d prefer something more optimistic. I wish for what I read next to focus more on what is redeemable in our human character, and not only on what is lost
