The overweight loser in "The 400-Pound CEO'' works for the insane owner of a raccoon removal company that promises a humanitarian treatment but kills the animals brutally. Saunders's future world engenders strange, disgruntled workers, made more vicious by their need to survive a stark and ruthless marketplace. A similarly frightened worker in "The Wavemaker Falters'' is haunted by images from the past-he's visited by the ghost of the boy he chopped up by accident in the wave-making machine at the water park where he works. The rides and exhibits are in disrepair, attendance is low, and violent gangs assault the perimeter. The title piece introduces the author's screwed-up future the narrator is the cowardly flunkey of a theme- park owner who's trying to interest investors in his dying enterprise. Saunders's weird naturalism pulls you in with its chattiness and modest posture-no science-fictional bombast weighs down these skilled narratives. His is a dystopian vision of a "degraded cosmos,'' a future in which leisure and history combine in theme parks for the rich while the rest of humanity fights over scarce resources. O元288097W Page_number_confidence 90.31 Pages 198 Partner Innodata Pdf_module_version 0.0.16 Ppi 360 Rcs_key 24143 Republisher_date 20211111004443 Republisher_operator Republisher_time 310 Scandate 20211105041403 Scanner Scanningcenter cebu Scribe3_search_catalog isbn Scribe3_search_id 9780099595816 Tts_version 4.A debut collection so friendly and casual in style (pieces first appeared in Harper's and The New Yorker) that it takes a while before you realize what a frightening world Saunders has created. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 20:08:16 Boxid IA40280310 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier
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