I am truly sorry, it will begin. Sorry for my part in this. What did you deny me, really, after all? A beautiful year or so, in a lovely place. It would have made me happy. But what is it, a year, in the grand scheme? Nothing. What are ten years, a hundred, a thousand? I am going, friend, I am all but gone, I believe you prideful and wrong but I have no desire, now, to cure you. Your wrongness was an idea I had. I am all but gone. My idea of your wrongness will go with me. Your rightness is an idea you are having. It will go with you. For all of that, I hope you live forever, and if the place falls down around you, as it seems to be doing, I hope even that brings you joy. It was always falling down around you, everything has always been falling down around us. Only we were too alive to notice. I feel the truth of this in my body now. I am trying not to be terrified. But I am sometimes, in the night. If you are a praying man, pray for me, friend. Friend who might have been. Friend who should have been.

That letter exists in my mind. But I am too tired to write it. Well, that is not true. I am not too tired.

I’m just not ready.

The surge of pride and life and self is still too strong in me.

But I will get there. I will. I will write it yet.

Only I must not wait too long.

About the Author

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

George Saunders is the author of twelve books, including Lincoln in the Bardo, which debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, won the 2017 Man Booker Prize for best work of fiction in English, and was a finalist for the Golden Man Booker, in which one Booker winner was selected to represent each decade, from the fifty years since the prize’s inception. The audiobook for Lincoln in the Bardo, which features a cast of 166 actors, won the 2018 Audie Award for best audiobook. The story collection Tenth of December was a finalist for the National Book Award; it won the inaugural Folio Prize in 2013 (for the best work of fiction in English) and the Story Prize. Saunders has received MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships and the PEN/Malamud Prize for Excellence in the Short Story. In 2013, he was named one of the world’s one hundred most influential people by Time magazine. He has taught in the creative writing program at Syracuse University since 1997.

About the Type

ABOUT THE TYPE