Book Club Guide

Tenth of December

by George Saunders · 2013 · Literary Fiction

Key themes

Goodness as a daily, improvised practice under pressure
Consciousness and its interruption — the moment before the fall
Compassion for characters who are stupid, suffering or both

About this book

Ten stories in Saunders's distinctive voice — comic, tender, formally inventive, morally serious — about ordinary Americans in extraordinary situations: a man contemplating suicide, a test subject for experimental mood drugs, a child imagining a rescue fantasy. One of the most celebrated short story collections of recent decades.

Published in 2013, Tenth of December was a critical phenomenon, with the New York Times Magazine predicting it would make Saunders America's most important short story writer. He won the Booker Prize in 2017 for his novel Lincoln in the Bardo.

Discussion questions

Saunders has described his method as attempting to feel compassion for his characters even when they are doing terrible things. How does he achieve this — and what does it ask of the reader?
Several stories use interior monologue that reflects characters' limited self-knowledge. How does Saunders make the gap between a character's self-understanding and the truth both funny and heartbreaking?
The title story involves an act of sacrifice by a dying man for a boy he doesn't know. How does Saunders set up this act — and what does it say about the capacity for goodness in people we initially meet as failures?
Saunders's fiction is often formally experimental — using unconventional typography, fragments, invented corporate language. What does this experimentalism serve?
The collection satirises contemporary American culture — consumerism, violence, corporate language. Is Saunders's satire hopeful about human nature — or only about the capacity of fiction to represent it?