George Saunders on the title story of his new collection, In Persuasion Nation:

“At some point I thought, ‘This is a story making fun of marketing.’ Then I thought, ‘Is that really sufficient? No. Who can not make fun of marketing?’ So I just kept working with it, and in the end it wasn’t really about marketing. It was about this American feeling now, which is, “We’re caught in something, politically, that is bigger than us and doesn’t really care.” But that thing with the polar bear being like a fish realising he’s in water, that was for me the profound thing the story was trying to do. That’s how stories work. At some point that fish has to rise, or you’re kind of screwed.”

Read the rest of the profile here.

After searching the shelves at Cody’s for my friend Joe Quirk’s excellent new book, Sperm Are From Men, Eggs Are From Women, the information counter directed me to the humor section.

While I know Joe is always keen to provoke a laugh, especially at his own expense, his intent with this new book is serious. Having worked the receiving counter at a bookstore for many years, I know sometimes categorizing a book is a gut decision. But don’t let the cartoonish cover dissuade you. Joe’s book, like most facets of human sexuality when seen with perspective, is both hilarious and profound.

Joe’s making his first public appearance in support of his new book this Thursday, June 8, at Books Inc on Alameda. He promises to wear pants.

The central conceit of Kazuo Ishiguro’s new novel, Never Let Me Go, seems so outlandish that it’s a surprise to find the same mannered, controlled prose he displayed in such books as The Remains of the Day and An Artist of the Floating World. Ishiguro’s early novels were intricate chamber pieces that delicately prodded at the fissures in crumbling social structures. The Unconsoled marked a shift in Ishiguro’s subject matter towards postmodernism; Never Let Me Go is a seismic upheaval. The dreamy atmosphere had always been present, but more as background than subject matter. With this latest book, he plunges straight into those foggy mysteries of identity.

It doesn’t spoil the book to know that these children are clones, raised for the exclusive purpose of donating their vital organs for medical transplants. That’s the hook that draws you in. What’s remarkable here is Ishiguro’s patient revelation of this information and his ability to couch his provocative idea within the more predictable context of a petty school-age love triangle. The narrative is sublimated to focus on character; very few of the technical details –- the order the organs are removed or the secret hatchery where the clones are born –demand explaining. The fact that it didn’t occur to me to ask those questions is a sign of Ishiguro’s restraint.

Never Let Me Go provokes a quiver of moral questions. Do you hold education out as a carrot as you lead the young to their deaths? Does the ability to create indicate the presence of a soul, or just another form of human intelligence? Knowing the student’s destiny, it seems cruel to give these children hope, even crueler still to allow hope to fester in their imagination.