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And thank you.

I'm Christopher Lighten. This is open source.

The literary master George Saunders is our guest this hour to show us for starters

how to recognize a masterpiece in a mere short story.

He's also going to spell out how a handful of Russians,

led by Dostoevsky, then Tolstoy, then Chekhov,

how they reset the standard of high art in the short story form.

George Saunders himself won high honors for his best-selling novel of three years ago,

titled Lincoln in the Bardot.

It was honest Abe in a sort of limbo to grieve again with his son Willie

who died in the White House.

I call George Saunders a triple threat, a writer first,

but famous too as a reader of the classics,

and as teacher in a celebrated writing course at Syracuse University

from which this new book is drawn.

It's called a swim in a pond in the rain,

in which four Russians give a masterclass on writing, reading, and life.

This is a double lure in this book George Saunders,

and in your teaching, first to nail the Chekhov effect,

...