Some favorite articles/videos/conversations/pictures (yes, inclucing ours) from George Saunders’ recent wild ride/rise

4 min readMar 5, 2017

Full-disclosure. For me, George Saunders has been at least tied for tops among living writers for a long, long time — but I wouldn’t nearly so closely have been following his, this past month and a half, rather meteoric rise to — what? literary sainthood? He was nearly there already No, it’s something beyond that that feels like a kind of anti-Trump-middle-aged-American-white-man-Dalai-Lama-dom? and the closest thing to real-world fame that any literary short-story writer (any short story writer, period) has approached in . . . my memory, anyway.
POINT IS, though, as much as I am a fan, if I hadn’t had a conversation with GS for my podcast in late January, I wouldn’t be following as such a sick fanboy, but I would still be deep in the Saundersoralia re him and his great first novel after decades of writing stories. For starters, then, before more recognizable fish, here’s our conversation, from before the mania began, early this year:

But don’t just take our word for it!

Now some of the other stuff I’ve enjoyed the most:

This swell article by Andrew Purcell that he worked really hard on but it doesn’t feel workmanlike or anything: http://www.andrewpurcell.net/?p=2626
this picture (someone told me where the pic. originated, but I don’t remember — apologies — (we spoke a bit about this time, these dreams of a very different stardom, post-high-school, in our conversation — see that big soundcloud link-y thing above) :

Totally bomb Bomb convo. w. Sam Lipsyte: http://bombmagazine.org/article/4871223/george-saunders
the complete cast list of the audiobook — you’ll want this — I’m in the middle of my second listen, which came after my first read: http://www.penguinrandomhouseaudio.com/lincolninthebardo
Entire Chicago reading/event video: https://youtu.be/UiGAvim1Zuw
Guardian Piece by GC on what writers do, contains a lot of the best of what he’s been talking about on the road: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/04/what-writers-really-do-when-they-write?CMP=share_btn_tw

Esquire piece/pics on inspirational objects of GS: http://www.gq.com/story/george-saunders-lincoln-in-the-bardo-inspiration
the first of several tweets I’ve seen about “Lincoln in the Bardot,” which gave me a tickle every time

Interview Mag conversation with Zadie Smith: http://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/george-saunders#_
the Colbert/Late Show appearance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5K0Dum_bTk
the Charlie Rose show interview with Seth Myers sitting in for CR. Also, this pic (a whole lot of people want to hug GS lately): https://charlierose.com/videos/29963

At the Cambridge reading, I stood up and asked a question in the Q&A, pretty much about how the success/attention of the last 10 days (which is about what it was at the time) felt. GS answered with this Seussian Trump-era doggeral (what he called it, not me) that has since been reposted as “debut”ing in once city after the next. I like to think the first reading was in response to my question, but it’s not likely. Harvard Bookstore has promised me the audio of the Q&A, but has let to release it to me, alas.

Finally, this, today, so well-earned, number-freaking-one on the Times’ Bestseller List — we are living in strange, stange, largely crappy to horrible times. Take pleasure and victories where you can find them — most of everything calls Lincoln in the Bardo SAD but there’s so much funny and silly and incredibly gorgeous in there too:

I’ll go back in my cave and keep looking for a few more weeks, so watch the bottom of this doc., it’s likely to grow — Thanks!

15 Minutes: a podcast about fame
http://15minutesjamieberger.com / @15minsjamieb