About the Author George Saunders is the author of two short-story collections, "Pastoralia" and "CivilWarLand in Bad Decline," a finalist for the 1996 PEN/Heming-way Award. His work has received two National Magazine Awards and three times been included in O. Henry Awards collections. In 1999 he was chosen by "The New Yorker" as one of the twenty best American fiction writers age forty and under. He teaches in the creative writing program at Syracuse University. About the Illustrator Lane Smith has illustrated several number-one national bestsellers, including "The True Story of the