One of the most imagintive writers of short fiction

I'm one of the early adopters when it comes to George Saunders's short stories, so I feel a kind of aesthetic vindication reading all the encomiums that have welcomed his newest collection, Tenth of December, including a to-kill-for NYTsunmag profiles called something like "greatest writer you've never heard of" - well, excuse me, some have, and have been waiting for Saunders to get his props. He's definitely one of the most original and imaginative writers of short fiction today, and perhaps someday his work will be judged alongside Kafka, Calvino, Borges (it's already often compared with Barthelme). The first story in the collection, Victory Lap (which I think appeared in the NYer, which has recognized Saunders's voice and talent) is a pretty good intro to his work: superficially a story of a foiled abduction, a neighborhood thug tricks his way into the home of a teenage beauty and starts to drag her away - but the nerdy cross-country-running teenage neighbor witnesses the scene and, after wrestling with fears and inhibitions, steps up and knocks out the perp by throwing a rock (a geode). That said: this is not by any means a crime story or a "dramatic" story - it's a story about consciousness and personality: story told in shifting POV among the 3 characters, and we see, in Saunders's weird manner, the deep insecurities in each: the beauty with her strange fantasies of meeting the boy of her dreams, her posting and posturing; the runner with his teenage crush on the neighbor and, most interesting, his struggles with his bizarre controlling family. (The abductor is much less developed than the other two characters.) The runner is the most typical of a Saunders character - an outsider, a bit of a loser, surely an obsessive; his family also typical of Saunders types: the dad building a "status clock" that shows at any time which family members are home, and award "points" to the son (the "precious only") for behavior/misbehavior that he can "cash in" for extra TV time and the like - many Saunders stories involve these odd social contracts and controlling behaviors, sometimes in office settings or, a particular Saunders specialty, in amusement parks and theme parks. The girl is less typical - an obviously successful and popular social type - but in this story Saunders shows how even she - even everyone - rattles odd thoughts, fantasies, and fears through the mind.