Part II.

The following interview first appeared, in part, on episode one of The Organist, the new podcast from the Believer and KCRW. You can hear the episode here and hear the full Saunders interview here.

– Ross Simonini

THE BELIEVER: Do you read aloud while you’re writing?

GEORGE SAUNDERS: I don’t. And partly because my voices are so kind of blunt. They’re not as interesting as the ones I’m hearing. So, you know, because part of the thing with voice, too, I think you discover one. But if it stays static too long then that’s no good either. So you discover one, then in the process that voices teaches you its next—its highest register, in a certain way. So if I was reading them out loud I’d be too focused on trying to maintain it. But somehow when it’s on the page and you’re, let’s say, engaging it through a vision, then a certain voice will suggest a sub-voice. So, in the best case, the voice will continue to evolve through the whole piece. You can identify it as being related to the beginning but it’s not just a duplication of that.

BLVR: When you say a “sub-voice,” what do you mean by that?

GS:  Well, I’m trying to think. OK, so there’s a story, the title story in Tenth of December, there’s a kid who’s… broadly stated, he’s kind of a reject. And the way I stumbled on him was to say, “Oh, I need a kid,” and then have him start talking in this kind of like… I can’t do it…but kind of a slightly [pronounced with a fake voice]… no I can’t even do it.

BLVR: [Laughter]

GS: But it’s a nerdy voice. It’s a nerdy smart-kid voice. A little superior. So I started doing that, but in the process the sub-voice was he veered off in this kind of consistent pattern of fantasizing about rescue, which… I didn’t know that he would do that. But just from continually lowering myself in his voice you get a little bored with what you’ve done and also in a… not in a mystical way, but in some kind of generative way, doing a voice suggests just tonal variations—which, when you think of it, a tonal variation of a voice is identical to character, you know? I feel if I can get into kind of a good vein of voice then all kinds of exciting things happen, whereas, if I’m trying to dictate the story’s progress by some kind of conceptual mechanism, then the energy doesn’t get engaged.

BLVR: So it...