Aside from all the formal invention and satirical energy of Saunders\u2019s fiction, the main thing about it, which tends not to get its due, is how much it makes you feel<\/i>. I\u2019ve loved Saunders\u2019s work for years and spent a lot of hours with him over the past few months trying to understand how he\u2019s able to do what he does, but it has been a real struggle to find an accurate way to express my emotional response to his stories. One thing is that you read them and you feel known, if that makes any sense. Or, possibly even woollier, you feel as if he understands humanity in a way that no one else quite does, and you\u2019re comforted by it. Even if that comfort often comes in very strange packages, like say, a story in which a once-chaste aunt comes back from the dead to encourage her nephew, who works at a male-stripper restaurant (sort of like Hooters, except with guys, and sleazier), to start unzipping and showing his wares to the patrons, so he can make extra tips and help his family avert a tragic future that she has foretold.<\/p>\n
Junot D\u00c3\u00adaz described the Saunders\u2019s effect to me this way: \u201cThere\u2019s no one who has a better eye for the absurd and dehumanizing parameters of our current culture of capital. But then the other side is how the cool rigor of his fiction is counterbalanced by this enormous compassion. Just how capacious his moral vision is sometimes gets lost, because few people cut as hard or deep as Saunders does.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n