Pastoralia
Set in a theme park, the title story "Pastoralia" is a darkly comedic satire. Employees live and act like prehistoric cave dwellers. The protagonist, a man known as "the caveman," struggles to maintain a sense of dignity and purpose. In the real world, we learn the caveman has a wife and they have a child with serious medical issues. The caveman took the job of providing treatment for his ill son. We learn that he and Janet, the cavewoman, need this job for family support.
They must maintain a semblance of what prehistoric people acted like. This happens in a cartoonish way that accords with conventional thinking. Think: a lot of grunting and eating a goat the guy has to skin every day after it's dropped through the "big slot". There's also a "small slot" for matches to start their fire.
Every evening they go to their separate sleep quarters. Each must evaluate their mate's performance that day and fax it in. Did they acquit themselves well? Does anything require mediation? The caveman gives positive reports continuously, even when Janet drops the ball at times. Such as when she speaks English. Or when she is annoyed about her situation, often blaming the caveman.
One day the goat is not in the slot as per usual. Nor the following day. They fall back to cracker rations. Then, just as unexpectedly as it stopped, a goat comes back in the slot again and the routine is revisited.
The story comes to a head one day when a couple with a bratty kid visits. The father holds him up to see the cave people. Dubious, the kid calls his dad a liar. These are not real cave people. Upon hearing this, Janet makes a few remarks about the peevish kid. She ends her invective with the phrase, "Jesus....". One of the parents of the brat notes back (paraphrasing here), hey, you're speaking English. And for that matter, didn't Jesus come after cave people were alive? I'm reporting you to management. Your ass is grass.
One day they get a plastic goat with instructions to go on with the show. Included is a warning. Do not put the goat too close to the flame, as it might melt. Also, it might emit poisonous fumes.
So the caveman feels he needs to be honest in his report on Janet. He knows management would be getting a visitor complaint.
Naturally, management lets Janet go and she has words of dislike toward the caveman for not lying for her.
The next day, the caveman gets a few steaks, some pies, Cokes, and Sprites through the slot.
Everything then plays out as in any corporate downsizing. There is gaslighting the workers, frightening prospects of layoffs, a few real layoffs, and finally, a Janet replacement. Is this the core of the story Pastoralia—a critique of run-away capitalism?
Another notable story in the collection is "Sea Oak," in which we follow the utterly disturbing life of a working-class extended family following the death of Aunt Bernie. At the funeral home, they learn they don't have enough for a decent casket, so they go into hock with the funeral home director for a seven-year loan to cover something one step up from a cardboard box. After the burial, they get a call that her grave has been "defaced." They arrive at the site to learn that it hasn't been defaced in the typical definition of the word but that someone has stolen her body from the grave. Stunned, they head home only to discover her in zombie form, sitting on her rocking chair per usual. As a zombified aunt, she challenges the family's complacency about finding ways to earn money and step up in their financial status by doing crude things. Eventually, she continues to bemoan her slow state of physical decay and how she regrets not doing many things in life. Eventually, she dies a second time and the family re-buries her.
In "The Falls," the narrator is of humble origins and has low self-esteem, but goes on flights of fancy imagining himself writing timeless literature that would bring world fame to him, and in particular to the locals of his hometown. He feels lower than all the successful athletes and businesspeople and wants to be known as someone of higher calling and rewards. Eventually, as he strolls along a river, he notices some girls in a boat floating quickly toward the falls. They call out to him for help. Will he help them? Can he? What if he fails and dies with them? Isn't he needed at home? The story prods the reader along with inventive twists and turns and yields its ending in its final sentence.
Saunders writes about those alienated, disillusioned, or trapped within oppressive systems. He uses humor, satire, and a distinctive narrative style to explore the absurdities of contemporary society and the human condition.