Adult

For the last 20 years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A SWIM IN A POND IN THE RAIN, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times.

Annie and her devoted but comically incompetent childhood sweetheart, Sam, are the owners and operators of Annie's, a gourmet sandwich shop, home to the legendary Paul Bunyan Special Sandwich --- their "nutritionally challenged continual source of income and marital harmony and local fame." But into their mostly charmed marriage comes the scary medical diagnosis for Annie --- and the overwhelming challenge of finding a way to help Sam go on without her. Annie decides to leave Sam step-by-step instructions for a future without her, and considers her own replacement in his heart and their bed. Her best-laid plans grind to a halt with the unexpected appearance of Ursula, Annie's Manhattan diva of a mother, who brings her own brand of chaos and disruption into their lives.

Paris, 1943: Lana Antanova is on her way to see her husband with the thrilling news that she is pregnant. But when she arrives at the convent where he teaches music, she’s horrified to see Gestapo officers execute him for hiding a Jewish girl in the piano. A few months later, grieving both her husband and her lost pregnancy, Lana is shocked when she’s approached to join the resistance on the French Riviera. Lana’s cover story makes her the mistress of Guy Pascal, a wealthy Swiss industrialist and fellow resistance member, in whose villa in Cap Ferrat she lives. Consumed by her work, she doesn’t expect to become attached to a young Jewish girl or wonder about the secrets held by the man whose house she shares.

London, 1893: High up in a house on a dark, snowy night, a lone seamstress stands by a window. So begins the swirling, serpentine world of Paraic O’Donnell’s Victorian-inspired mystery, the story of a city cloaked in shadow, but burning with questions: Why does the seamstress jump from the window? Why is a cryptic message stitched into her skin? And how is she connected to a rash of missing girls, all of whom seem to have disappeared under similar circumstances? On the case is Inspector Cutter, a detective as sharp and committed to his work as he is wryly hilarious. Gideon Bliss, a Cambridge dropout in love with one of the missing girls, stumbles into a role as Cutter’s sidekick. And clever young journalist Octavia Hillingdon sees the case as a chance to tell a story that matters.

When Maze returns to Wildstone for the wedding of her estranged BFF and the sister of her heart, it’s also a reunion of a once ragtag team of teenagers who had only each other until a tragedy tore them apart and scattered them wide. Now as adults together again in the lake house, there are secrets and resentments mixed up in all the amazing childhood memories. Unexpectedly, they instantly fall back into their roles: Maze their reckless leader, Cat the den mother, Heather the beloved baby sister, and Walker, a man of mystery. Life has changed all four of them in immeasurable ways. Maze and Cat must decide if they can rebuild their friendship, and Maze discovers her long-held attraction to Walker hasn’t faded with the years but has only grown stronger.

Celebrity couple Jack and Cass Mandeville are successful, good-looking, likable and famous for having an ideal marriage. On Jack's 40th birthday --- a milestone he's been both anticipating and dreading --- a stunning, and stunningly intelligent, redhead named Imogen turns up to interview the couple for a high-profile magazine. Like a bolt of lightning, Jack is hit with a midlife crisis of epic proportions, and Jack and Cass' proverbial bubble bursts. This drastic turn of events flips their lives upside down, and sends their entire family, friends, local community and fans around the country into a tailspin. Cass can only hope Jack will snap out of it soon, but it's too late already. Nothing will ever be the same again.

For trying to save his in-laws, who were fleeing certain death in Syria, Stéphan Pélissier was threatened with 15 years in prison by the Greek justice system, which accused him of human smuggling. His crime? Having gone to search for the parents, brother and sister of his wife, Zéna, in Greece rather than leaving them to undertake a treacherous journey by boat to Italy. Their joy on finding each other quickly turned into a nightmare: Pélissier was arrested as a result of a missing car registration and thrown into prison. Although his relatives were ultimately able to seek asylum --- legally --- in France, Pélissier had to fight to prove his innocence, and to uphold the values of common humanity and solidarity in which he so strongly believes.

On Hawaii Island, an anonymous 911 caller reports a body at Pohakuloa, the Army’s live-fire training area. Hilo Chief Detective Koa Kane, a cop with his own secret criminal past, finds a mutilated corpse --- bearing all the hallmarks of ancient ritual sacrifice. He encounters a host of obstacles as he pursues the murderer --- an incompetent local medical examiner, hostility from both haoles (Westerners) and sovereignty advocates, and a myriad of lies. Koa races to discover whether the victim stumbled upon a gang of high-tech archaeological thieves, or learned a secret so shocking it cost him his life and put others in mortal danger.

An unambitious 22-year-old, Darren lives in a Bed-Stuy brownstone with his mother. A chance encounter with Rhett Daniels, the silver-tongued CEO of Sumwun, New York City’s hottest tech startup, results in an exclusive invitation for Darren to join an elite sales team on the 36th floor. After enduring a “hell week” of training, Darren, the only Black person in the company, reimagines himself as “Buck,” a ruthless salesman unrecognizable to his friends and family. But when things turn tragic at home and Buck feels he’s hit rock bottom, he begins to hatch a plan to help young people of color infiltrate America’s sales force, setting off a chain of events that forever changes the game.

On a brilliantly sunny July day, six-year-old Ruby is abandoned by her father in the suffocating dark of a Tennessee cave. Twenty years later, transformed into soap opera star Eleanor Russell, she is fired under dubious circumstances. Fleeing to Europe, she marries a glamorous stranger named Orlando Montague and keeps her past closely hidden. Together, Eleanor and Orlando start afresh in LA. Setting up house in a storybook cottage in the Hollywood Hills, Eleanor is cast in a dream role --- the lead in a remake of REBECCA. As she immerses herself in that eerie gothic tale, Orlando’s personality changes, ghosts of her past re-emerge, and Eleanor fears she is not the only person in her marriage with a secret.