Saunders presents a disturbing, cynical view of modern-day America in this collection of short stories and one novella. Each story exaggerates aspects of our culture to emphasize their absurdities, starting with a haunted Civil War amusement park plagued by marauding gangs and a psychotic security guard in the title story. Each story also features a protagonist who is so subjugated and victimized by the authority figures that surround him that he has no real hope of escape, except (maybe) death.

The highlight of the collection is “Bounty,” a novella set in a collapsed America, where anyone who is “Flawed” is either a slave or forced to live separately from everyone else in their own amusement parks. A roadtrip through this bleak, dystopian landscape reveals an America taken to a logical extreme, inhabited by the ridiculous, bigots and buffoons, squabbling over the meager remains of civilization.

Saunders’ writing is depressing and bleak, outrageous and bizarre, funny and cynical, all at the same time. He makes the reader feel uncomfortable, because as outlandish as his stories are, underneath there is always something all too familiar. He has such a unique voice and point of view that he is very much worth reading.

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