George Saunders on the Nature of Mind

” involves a kind of mind meld between two strangers, in which one man experiences the memories of the other . The two men have very different personalities and histories. I’m guessing that the challenge of writing the story was also the pleasure of writing it: finding a credible way to blend the two voices while keeping them distinct. How did you do it?“Thursday” started with a fragment that had fallen off another story I wrote years ago.

Well, to be honest, the “benefit” part, for me, is secondary. This aspect of the story—the combined consciousnesses—wasn’t planned, but grew out of the initial setup and surprised me when it happened. This is how it works best—if I don’t know what I’m looking for and then that thing comes and finds me. Then I just go, “Oh, I see, this is what you want to be about, story. O.K., let’s do that, since you seem to feel strongly about it.

The two men in the story had very different childhoods: one lived on an isolated farm with loving but puritanical parents; the other had parents who cheated, fought, drank, divorced, and showed little interest in their kids. Both men lived quite lonely adult lives. Is there something to be learned from that?

Did you find yourself identifying with one character more than the other, or are you more like Horace, the I.T. guy, fiddling with the brain you have stored in your crawl space?The story is anchored in Gerard’s mind and, especially, in his diction; there are a number of places where he’s relaying/retelling David’s experience in his own more sophisticated language. So, I think the story tilts a bit in his direction.

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