Tenth of December: Stories (2013) is American author George Saunders’s fourth short story collection. Saunders is widely regarded as one of the modern masters of the short story form, and this collection features stories written between 1995 and 2012, some of which were previously published in various literary outlets. The book was a bestseller and was widely praised on release, winning both the Story Prize and the Folio Prize. This guide refers to the 2013 Kindle edition of the collection.

Content Warning: The stories in this collection depict or discuss sexual violence, child and domestic abuse, death by suicide and suicidal ideation, and war trauma.

Plot Summary

There are 10 stories in Tenth of December, each about a failure of empathy between characters.

In “Victory Lap,” teenager Alison Pill is home alone after school. She believes the world is inherently good, and pities her unpopular neighbor Kyle Boot for having a strict home life. Meanwhile, Kyle finds a note instructing him to place a geode in the yard for his father. Kyle rebels internally through inventive cursing and imagined backtalk. When Kyle sees a man attempt to abduct Alison at her door, his first impulse is to follow his parents’ dictate not to get involved in other people’s problems. His desire to help Alison wins out, and he hits the man with the geode. Alison watches from inside as Kyle threatens to murder the attempted kidnapper, hoping he won’t. Flashing forward, Alison wakes from a nightmare and her parents soothe her by making her tell them what happened: she went outside and stopped Kyle from killing the man.

“Sticks” is a vignette narrated by the adult children of a man who dresses up a pole on his lawn for holidays. After the man’s wife passes, the decorations become more bizarre, culminating in an apologetic display addressed to his children. When he dies, the children sell the house and note that the new owners put his decorations in the garbage.

In “Puppy,” a mother, Marie, takes her two children on a journey to adopt a puppy from Callie, who has a son, Bo, with mental disability. Callie has chained her son to a tree outside, as he is miserable in the house but she needs to keep him safe. She also wants to make sure the puppy is adopted, as she knows her husband intends to kill it, as they cannot take care of it. When Marie arrives, she is disgusted by Callie’s messy house, but she prides herself on not showing it to her children. When she sees Bo in the yard, she is appalled: she refuses to adopt the puppy and leaves with the intention of reporting Callie. With no other option, Callie takes the puppy to a field and abandons it, then watches how happy her son is in the backyard and reflects on how much she loves him.

“Escape from Spiderhead” is about a prisoner, Jeff, who is given a new drug that makes him fall deeply in love with a woman, Heather. Under the drug’s influence, the two have sex as the experimenters watch. Later that day, the experiment is repeated with another woman, Rachel. After, Jeff is brought to the control room and given a choice: One of the two women will be forced to endure a drug, DarkenfloxxTM, that causes intense suffering. Jeff cannot choose between them, proving that the experimental drug worked without lingering feelings of affection. Jeff is put into a room with another man and realizes he is now the one who might be dosed. This experience is repeated with another man. Jeff’s handler, Abnesti, declares the trial a success. His bosses think otherwise and demand that Jeff watch Heather be given DarkenfloxxTM; he is forced to describe what happens as she dies by suicide. When Rachel is brought in to be subjected to the same fate, Jeff chooses to dose himself rather than watch her suffer, thereby ruining the experiment. He dies by suicide and ascends over the complex, feeling peace that he can no longer cause harm to others.

“Exhortation” is written as a memo from a supervisor, Todd, to his employees about company morale. Todd uses the analogy of cleaning a shelf to instruct his employees on the difference between working with a good or bad attitude, and he uses one employee in particular, who had an excellent month of productivity before falling off, as an example to implicitly threaten everyone. It becomes clear that the work they do is intensely demoralizing and violent in nature, and it is implied that if they do not continue to do it, they will become victims of it.

The titular character of “Al Roosten” is being auctioned off as a bachelor for a local charity function. One of his cohort, Larry Donfrey, wears a bathing suit and gets applause. When Al goes on stage, the audience is silent until one person pities him, which leads to a round of applause he misinterprets. When Donfrey tries to comfort him, Al feels indignant, and when he’s backstage alone, he kicks Donfrey’s keys and wallet under some risers. He then learns Donfrey is about to take his daughter to a surgical procedure. Al leaves, considering if he should go back and return Donfrey’s keys, though he knows it will reveal his pettiness. He imagines his mother making justifications for his inaction, and when he is still bothered that the girl will miss her surgery, he dismisses it as negative thinking. He arrives at the failing store he runs; he imagines beating one of the unhoused persons nearby, but only returns a smile when one of the men smiles at him.

In “The Semplica Girl Diaries,” a father writes a series of diary entries about the dissatisfaction of his lower-middle-class life. When the family goes to the birthday party of his older daughter’s rich friend, he feels the class difference keenly. The rich family has a display of Semplica Girls (a science fictional conceit in which poor immigrant girls are paid to have brain surgery and be hung as living ornaments). The narrator wants to help his daughter improve her social standing, but cannot afford the gifts she wants for her upcoming birthday. When he wins several thousand dollars from a scratch-off lottery ticket, he decides to throw his daughter a surprise party, including a display of four Semplica Girls. The party is a hit, but his youngest daughter Eva is distraught about the Semplica Girls, who she believes are suffering. The narrator tries to explain that their lives are better now. After the sudden death of a colleague, the narrator urges his children to live in the moment, which prompts Eva to emancipate the Semplica Girls overnight, inadvertently leaving the family indebted to the company that installed them. The narrator hopes the problem will resolve without anyone discovering Eva’s actions, but a freelance investigator gets involved who is invested in bringing anti-Semplica Girl activists to justice. With the situation unresolved, the narrator decides to have the empty Semplica Girl rack taken away.

In “Home,” Mikey returns from an unspecified war in the Middle East after being found innocent in a court-martial. His mother lives with a new man who reveals she might have cancer. Mikey goes to see his sister Renee and his nephew, but her in-laws are there and she doesn’t let him in. At home, he sees his mother is being evicted, and he assaults the landlord. Mikey hides and watches as a sheriff evicts his mother and her boyfriend. He threatens to burn the house down with them inside if they don’t get their act together, then backs off when he sees how afraid they are of him. He goes to his ex-wife Joy’s house; when she’s not home, he wanders to a store that is selling a device he doesn’t understand. He accidentally takes one with him when he returns to Joy’s house and confronts her and her new husband; it’s implied they had an affair while Mikey and Joy were married. Joy’s husband says to come back tomorrow. The next day, he takes his mother and her boyfriend to Renee’s for shelter, where he isn’t allowed to hold his nephew. He smashes a pitcher, then goes back to the store, where he returns the device and talks to another veteran of the same conflict, then he goes back to Joy’s house. His whole family is there to keep him from doing something violent; he is outraged, but softens when he sees his mother’s frailty, and he internally begs for them to bring him back from the war.

“My Chivalric Fiasco” concerns Ted, who, after catching his boss sexually assaulting his colleague Martha, is promoted from janitor to Pacing Guard at the medieval-themed attraction where he works. This means he will be given a drug that makes him act with chivalry so that he will better perform his role. When the drug kicks in, he sees Martha and cannot help but reveal the truth to all, as he feels it is the chivalric thing to do. He is fired, and as the drug wears off, he realizes he has been cruel and reckless. He watches the sunset as one last burst of the drug courses through him.

In “Tenth of December,” a young boy named Robin heads out in freezing weather, having an imagined conversation with a girl he likes. He sees Don Eber, a middle-aged man with a brain tumor, walking ahead of him without a coat; Eber intends to die by suicide to avoid his family watching him suffer. Robin decides to bring the man his coat, but he has trouble catching up to him, so he goes out on a frozen pond to cut him off. Eber sits down to die, but he sees Robin fall through the ice and rescues him by great effort. When Robin is in shock, Eber dresses him in his own clothes and jacket and forces him back to the trail. Robin runs off, and Eber begins to be affected by the cold. Robin realizes what he’s doing by abandoning Eber and thinks he should go back, but he is young and scared, so he goes to his mother. Robin’s mother appears before Eber as he hallucinates and brings him to her warm home. Eber decides that having community with his family is worth the coming suffering.