num_pages: 368
description: Book Description  Welcome to Inner Horner, a nation so small it can only accommodate one citizen at a time. The other six citizens must wait their turns in the Short-Term Residency Zone of the surrounding country of Outer Horner. It's a long-standing arrangement between the fantastical, not-exactly-human citizens of the two countries. But when Inner Horner suddenly shrinks, forcing three-quarters of the citizen then in residence over the border into Outer Horner territory, the Outer Hornerites declare an Invasion In Progress--having fallen under the spell of the power-hungry and demagogic Phil.  So begins The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil. Fueled by Saunders's unrivaled wit, outlandish imagination, and incisive political sensibility, here is a deeply strange yet strangely familiar fable of power and impotence, justice and injustice--an Animal Farm for our times.  Praise for George Saunders  "An astoundingly tuned voice--graceful, dark, authentic, and funny--telling just the kinds of stories we need to get us through these times."  --Thomas Pynchon  "Mr. Saunders writes like the illegitimate offspring of Nathanael West and Kurt Vonnegut. [His] satiric vision of America is dark and demented; it is also ferocious and very funny."  --Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times  "A master of distilling the disorders of our time into fiction."  --Salon.com
language: English
title: The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil / In Persuasion Nation
titlecomplete: The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil / In Persuasion Nation
genres: Fiction, American, Short Stories, Humor, Novella
ratings_count: 251
publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC