In the titular tale of Liberation Day, the narrator is one of the three ‘speakers’. In a dystopian world, Jeremy, along with his colleagues Lauren and Craig, is the property of the Untermeyers—parents and adult son Mike—who pinion them to ‘the speaking wall’ in their home.
Fed and changed by a pair of helpers, the ‘speakers’ are the entertainers at the performances the Untermeyers host for their guests every now and then ––grand performances, fed by technology, in which the ‘speakers’ create intricate, highly detailed spaces, adventures and characters, all through their speech.
Just like a speaker, all metal, plastic and wires, form part of a home entertainment system. Except that these ‘speakers’ are human. Human, but treated more or less like objects, even if the Untermeyers have possibly deluded themselves into thinking Jeremy & Co. are family members.
Two other stories in this collection, ‘Ghoul’ and ‘Elliott Spencer’, are of a similar dystopian world where some people—victims of a mercenary and exploitative system—find themselves reduced to mere puppets, robbed of their dignity, individuality, even their very humanity. In ‘Ghoul’, for instance, a group of people, constantly costumed and playing parts in a tableau, know of no existence other than this, where everything is regimented and on display.
What makes these three stories unsettling is not just the fact that this could be a possibly bleak future, but that it is so uncomfortably familiar even in the context of the present. Take this sentence from ‘Ghoul’: ‘Individuals blanked out mentally, then reprogrammed—human robots, so to speak—who arrive en masse, even in buses, for propaganda purposes?
While ‘Liberation Day’, ‘Ghoul’ and ‘Elliott Spencer' belong to a faraway, if frighteningly possible, world, the other stories in the collection are rooted in a milieu one is more familiar with. In ‘The Mom of Bold Action’, a mother, an aspiring writer whose imagination keeps running wild, must deal with a mishap that befalls her young son.
In ‘Mother’s Day’, another mother, old and physically feeble, but with her mind and attitude still strong, holds her own not just against her sometimes over-protective maverick daughter, but also against the unsavoury memories brought on by a chance encounter with a once-promiscuous neighbour.
Both stories are a far cry from the surreal worlds of dystopian stories. Both are very real––the former, in an amusing, tongue-in-cheek style, and the latter in a rather hard-hitting, grim way. Yet, both are about love, sometimes even bordering on distressing, making them all the more relatable.
Also about love is ‘Sparrow’, a short and sweet story about a timid, self-effacing woman, who falls in love with a colleague at the store where she works. A similar theme is explored in the fast-paced, darkly humorous ‘A Thing at Work’, where office politics play out in a series of increasingly ridiculous, but believable twists.
What makes these stories hit is the almost uncanny understanding of human nature each offers. Saunders strips away the clutter, gets deep down into what comprises a human being, and puts it out there, warts and all.
From the way love arises in ‘Sparrow’, unexpected and unhoped for, to the dawning of an odd ambition in the eponymous ‘Elliott Spencer’; from the hectic dog-eat-dog style of ‘A Thing at Work’ to the final realisation of the narrator of ‘My House’, each reveals something about people, how they behave, feel and think, and that humanity may, after all, be a crucial aspect of being human, even if it’s a rare trait in many members of the race.
Saunders’s language is impactful and carefully thought-out. There is humour, even if occasionally macabre. There is also empathy and compassion, and reminders–– both grim as well as light-hearted––of how society, politics and human behaviour function. his collection is a treasure, a veritable textbook for the craft of the short story.