George Saunders

But of course, in those situations, what one does is deny more fiercely.

Her name is Jill, and her nickname is Doll Blaine.

And she's, as I imagined her, she died at 22, very sweet young girl from Indiana, and she died quite traumatically.

So she's, on the one hand, this kind of high-level angel with a very generous view of life on Earth, and everybody is...

Worthy of love and forgiveness.

But he also, we find out, isn't quite done being alive.

You know, when I a few years ago, I did a nonfiction piece where I went to a homeless camp in Fresno and incognito and I lived there for a week and it was just harrowing.

But both of these supernatural books come out of that because it was people who were in a kind of a bardo state.

They saw that I was not from there somehow, even though I was trying to be hidden.

And they would tell me their stories over and over again.

And they were always, of course, the one sane person in the homeless camp.

and there was a sense that they were looking for something from me, like redemption or some kind of blessing, and it was quite... Or validation, I guess.

Validation, yeah.

And I think that experience has colored most of these books.

Why did you go and live for a week in a homeless camp?

Well, honestly, we needed college tuition money, so the magazine said, we'll pay you this much to go do a story, and it was either go to Burma or do the homeless camp.

I mean, it would have taken too long to get the visas, and I had some idea of Steinbeck, you know, like, oh, this will be...

Some guitar playing and some sitting under the stars, but it was much darker.

There were a couple of sort of crack dealerships within there, a lot of violence, and it was quite an amazing experience.

He taught geology.