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Original Essays | May 3, 2012

Lucia Perillo: IMG The Polymorph's Perversity



It should not be so hard to write both poetry and fiction. Both arts, after all, make use of the same materials, words and punctuation. Poems... Continue »
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Interviews | April 16, 2012

Jill Owens: IMG Leni Zumas: The Powells.com Interview



Leni ZumasLeni Zumas's writing crackles. Her books are sharp, bleak, funny, and possibly dangerous. When her collection of short stories, Farewell Navigator,... Continue »
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    The Listeners

    Leni Zumas 9781935639299

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Powell's Q&A

George Saunders

Birthplace: Amarillo, Texas
Birth Sign: Feces (hahaha). No really: Sagittarius
Publisher: Riverhead
Titles:



  1. In Persuasion Nation: Stories
    $8.95 Used Hardcover add to wishlist
    "Saunders is a hilarious, wicked, and pitch-perfect satirist of our times, of course, but for a satirist he has a whole lot of heart." Anna Godbersen, Esquire
  2. The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil
    $8.95 Used Trade Paper add to wishlist
    "[A]n absurdist wit as playful as Monty Python's and a vision as dark as Samuel Beckett's....Tightly packed with detail, dialogue and black humor..." Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
  3. Pastoralia
    $7.95 Used Trade Paper add to wishlist

    Pastoralia

    George Saunders
    "Artful and sophisticated...truly unusual. Imagine Lewis's Babbitt thrown into the back seat of a car going cross-country, driven by R. Crumb, Matt Groening, Lynda Barry, Harvey Pekar, or Spike Jonze. That'd be a story Saunders could tell." New York Times

Favorite Song: George, You Are Really the Coolest (Jimi Hendrix, 1968)

Favorite Movie: George and Jimi: Monterey Meltdown A Go-Go!!

Most Embarrassing Moment: The Last Two Questions

Favorite Food: Pizza from Traverso's, Orland Park, Illinois

Favorite Exercise: Getting up to stumble leadenly away from the table at Traverso's.

Special Power: Gradually wasting all my once special powers and gradually fading away to a shadow of my former self, then going to Traverso's.

Secret to your success? I appear very pitiful to people in power, who nurture me from a sense of nostalgia for the days when they themselves were pitiful.

Best vacation: With my wife and kids in Block Island, RI.

Favorite relaxant: Listening to Congressional disclaimers at extremely slow speed.

Superstitions: 1) I never swim naked in piranha-infested streams; and, 2) I never sever my penis with a knife, even if I'm really really angry.

Favorite color: I like them all. Except ochre. Freaking ochre. Ochre makes me want to... sever my... oh, I really hate ochre.

Personal motto: I have two: 1) Never answer questionnaires which force you to respond in pithy one-liners; AND, 2) Don't forget, don't ever forget, please, for God's sake, your superstition about the penis severing!

Favorite President: President Barak Obama.

Favorite Hiding Place: Right out in the open.

Shoes, sandals, or barefoot? Usually one of each, to give me that casual "limp" all the girls love.

Favorite animal: A large grizzly, stuffed with $100 bills.

Favorite time of year: Autumn in Central New York.

Ships, planes, trains, or automobiles? No, I am a Luddite, and also a radical Catholic, so only travel by crawling on my belly while mumbling an incantation of the many ways I am unworthy. Time-consuming, sure, but worth it.

Favorite performer: Teddy "SlushMouth" Cannipan, the harmonica scourge of South Bend, IN. Just don't sit in the front row!

Favorite city: New York, then Chicago. No, Chicago, then New York. Oh, heck, I love them both. Also I like Syracuse. And Dubai. Los Angeles is cool, too. Jeez, I can't decide.

Morning person or night person? I'll take one of each. Feel free to make the night person slightly less attractive, since it will be dark.

Your middle name: William.

When you were seven, what did you want to be when you grew up? Shortstop for the Chicago White Sox who was a surgeon in the off-season and was dating the actress Bridget Hanley, who would come to all my games and all my surgeries, amazed by my coolheadedness.

WiFi or HiFi? I must be NoFi because I don't really understand the question.

God or Mammon? Come on, is that a trick question? Who is this really?

Red or White? I believe both colors are necessary. For example, to make Pink.

Right or left-handed? I am right-handed, except when I am suddenly exposed to something ochre, at which time, with my left hand, I cast about madly, looking for my severing knife. spacer

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