Tenth of December

This the story collection that put Saunders on a lot radars. A boy imagining himself heroic in the woods and a dying man walking out onto a frozen pond to spare his family. Prisoners in a facility being dosed with drugs that produce love or obedience or despair on command, described in perfect marketing copy. A father who takes on a debt to buy his daughter the lawn ornament everybody has — young women from poor countries strung up on a wire as decoration. Saunders keeps putting people in impossible positions and then letting them choose well anyway.