“Life Is Rough and Death Is Coming”: George Saunders and the Catholic Literary Tradition

George Saunders is not often discussed as a Catholic writer, but this chapter opens with a close examination of his interviews that demonstrates why this is a mistake. From there, we move to an examination of the confessional urge that is central to Lincoln in the Bardo, and then the chapter draws connections between Saunders’s work and that of O’Connor, Percy, and Powers. In each case, we see how he uses moments of violence and trauma as a way to disorient both characters and the reader. This is done primarily through close readings of three stories: “The Falls,” “CommComm,” and “Tenth of December.” Like O’Connor, Saunders makes broad and persuasive claims for the power of fiction to affect the reader, and perhaps no writer since O’Connor has been able to use humor and violence in such perfect balance to achieve these ends.