George Saunders' Bedtime Story

The Late Show, with Stephen Colbert, has included a running skit that brings modern literary figures in (Jonathan Franzen and John Irving) to read bedtime stories to Stephen.  In last week's iteration, George Saunders reads Festive.  A down-on-his-luck dad writes in his diary about his struggle to

communicate the Christmas spirit to his kids without breaking his budget. The tale makes use of Saunders’ signature style, a fragmented, personable stream of earnest hopes and desperate insecurities. (“Note to self,” the dad says. “Set low dollar limit per kid … Gaze at sky to assuage kids’ sense of having been gypped by low limit.”)