In Persuasion Nation (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Our enemies will first assail the health of our commerce, throwing up this objection and that to innovative methods and approaches designed to expand our..." (more)
Key Phrases: penisless man, persuasion nation, green symbol, Chief Wayne, Uncle Matt, Chaz Wayne (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Following his superb story collections Civilwarland in Bad Decline (1996) and Pastoralia (1999), as well as last year's novella The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, Saunders reaffirms his sharp, surreal vision of contemporary, media-saturated life, but keeps most of the elements within his familiar bandwidth. In the sweetly acerbic "My Flamboyant Grandson," a family trip through Times Square is overwhelmed by pop-up advertisements. In "Jon," orphans get sold to a market research firm and become famous as "Tastemakers & Trendsetters" (complete with trading cards). "CommComm" concerns an air force PR flunky living with the restless souls of his parents while covering for a spiraling crisis at work. The more conventionally grounded stories are the most compelling: one lingers over a bad Christmas among Chicago working stiffs, another follows a pair of old Russian-Jewish women haunted by memories of persecution. Others collapse under the weight of too much wit (the title story especially), and a few are little more than exercises in patience ("93990," "My Amendment"). But Saunders's vital theme—the persistence of humanity in a vacuous, nefarious marketing culture of its own creation—comes through with subtlety and fresh turns. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Can there be too much good Saunders? Critics praise the book but then admit that reading the stories in succession almost overwhelmed them. As he did in CivilWarLand in Bad Decline and Pastoralia, Saunders takes our world to its logical extremes, sometimes to the point of oversaturation. If his work seems avant-garde, it's approachably so, probably because of his ability to "construct a story of absurdist satire, then locate within it a moment of searing humanity" (Boston Globe). There is some unevenness to his latest collection (both the title story and "Brad Carrigan, American" leave many critics grumbling, while "Bohemians" was chosen for this year's Best American Short Stories), but reviewers agree that there's no substitute for Saunders at his best—especially in small doses.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover; First Edition. 1 in number line edition (April 20, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159448922X
• ISBN-13: 978-1594489228
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #267,080 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read This Book, April 27, 2006

By	BJ DuPont (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

For objectivity's sake: I am a big fan of George Saunders' fiction and non-fiction alike. I see In Persuasion Nation as a step forward into new territories and places (always in Saunders' fiction, there is the place -- CivilWarLand, the land of Inner Horner, alternate universes where our advertising creations live lives close to our own), if not a giant leap ahead. Saunders' keeps it simple, but provocative: the world and all of its inhabitants are sacred, so why do we squander all of that precious sanctity brutalizing each other? This theme winds its way throughout this collection in ways both stark and hilarious. The prose is grounded in the way we say things, which casts an even stronger light on those passages that are transcendent in their simple and precise lyricism (here I am thinking especially of the ending to "CommComm", which I think is maybe Saunders' strongest story yet). If Saunders' deep concern with humanity comes across as saccharine at times, I think that's more of a comment on where we're at than where his fiction is, cause if you can't come to care for this cast of characters (which includes an orange and a polar bear with a hatchet in his head), then, well . . .

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We're already living in persuasion nation, July 14, 2006

By	Larry Dilg (Van Nuys, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a fantastic book. Readers of Saunders's work will recognize his style as well as some stories from The New Yorker, Harper's and elsewhere, but that familiarity should just enhance the experience. Nothing is lost in the second or third reading of these pieces except perhaps surprise. And even that quality remains, since his minimalist extravagances keep yielding new meanings even as they strip language down to its most crass and inarticulate forms. The structure of the book is intriguing: the four sections organize the stories thematically, but I could only sense the organization. In this "persuasion nation" advertising and paranoia are fused into a twisted positivism that relies on heedless change, commercial success, and cynical manipulation of political/religious values. It looks like our world of Fox, Botox, and Vioxx, but all restraints have been removed. The corporations have got it all: disorder, chaos, and fear run rampant. And it's all very funny, thanks to the branding, slapstick, dry wit, science and math, love of cliché, and masterful elision. None of this prevents deep sadness from oozing to the surface, either. The characters are flat and blasted, but their predicament is still pathetic enough and their yearning for light, hope, and meaning real enough to elicit our sympathy. While murder and cruelty reign, a spark of humanity still shines through the darkness. The cover picture, which seems to illustrate the end of "jon," is about right: a damaged boy finding a precious flower on stony ground still has the power to move us. When I finished In Persuasion Nation, I didn't feel that I'd been given a key to reality, but I looked at our bloated, terrorized world with a bit more distance and a wry smile. We need all the irony we can get.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Saunders delivers, July 23, 2006

By	M. Sabine Doiron "vorgefuhl" - See all my reviews

I've read Orwell, I've read Burgess and Huxley and a smattering of satirical short stories...and I never expected the dystopian could be so hysterically funny. His gift for humour, and his uncanny ability to pin down the ridiculous aspects of our current, heavily commercial society, put Saunders in a class all his own. The only weak story I might choose would be 93990 - all other stories were strikingly original, fluently written, and offered a message that went beyond mere wordplay. An extremely strong collection of stories that everyone should read.