George Saunders Interview: "Why Fiction Matters"

"The way to write about love, I guess, is to get some of it in the room, so to speak: have a character who loves, or claims to love something or someone or some idea, and then put him to the test. If we stumbled upon some mystery material, and wanted to know what it was, we might first ask: What are its essential properties? And then proceed to put it through some end-condition tests (extreme heat, stress, etc). I think fiction can do the same—and that mystery material is…us."

Read the full interview with George Saunders in America magazine