Unguarded Angel

There is a popular school of literary short fiction that could be loosely described as “hapless people drowning in the garbage culture.” There are different flavors: Sometimes the garbage is cultural ephemera; sometimes it’s a more significant form of political or economic waste; sometimes the people are more awful than hapless. There is the drug version, the sex version, the environmental-apocalypse version, and the voices can range from antic to numb. But the brass ring goes to the stories that most effectively convey how fucked up it all is. George Saunders is the standard-bearer for this type of writing, and his influence can be seen across the literary landscape.