‘Liberation Day’ is very different from ‘Fox 8’, and is one of the strangest and most disturbing stories I have ever read, and utterly compelling. It’s a typically inventive Saunders story, this time a blend of science fiction, horror, social commentary and historical perspectives. I found it almost impossible at the beginning of the story to understand what was going on. Gradually the horror becomes revealed, and after a few pages I was invested.
The main character, Jeremy, is unaware of the true circumstances of his life – at least for the first three-quarters of the story. This kind of deliberately-induced amnesia seems to be a theme with Saunders, and is itself akin to social commentary. Jeremy is a kind of slave. He belatedly realises this, but opts not to have his memory reset to a blank slate, and to live out his life in growing consciousness of inequity and exploitation. Horrifying, weird, darkly comic, tragic, and worth re-reading more than once.
Like all of Saunders’ stories, including ‘Fox 8’, this story contains many layers of meaning.
First published in Liberation Day, Random House, 2022
A Personal Anthology 