The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil
 US release cover | |
| Author | George Saunders |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Benjamin Gibson |
| Cover artist | Benjamin Gibson |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Political, Satire |
| Publisher | Riverhead Books |
Publication date | September 6, 2005 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 130 p. |
| ISBN | 1-59448-152-0 |
| OCLC | 58920059 |
| 813/.54 22 | |
| LC Class | PS3569.A7897 B75 2005 |
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil is a novella by short story writer George Saunders; it is 130 pages long. The novella was written at Syracuse University, New York, where Saunders is a creative writing professor.
Plot
The story focuses on the border disputes between the countries of Inner and Outer Horner, the former of which is "so small that only one Inner Hornerite at a time could fit inside, and the other six Inner Hornerites had to wait their turns to live in their own country while standing very timidly in the surrounding country of outer Horner."
Phil, an embittered Outer Hornerite, decides that the puny Inner Hornerites do nothing but stand around very close together solving math proofs all day, and have to stretch one at a time every morning; Seen as an evil threat to the leisure of the five Outer Hornerites, they are understood as abusing the vast good will that they have received courtesy of the Outer Hornerites. As they stand in the short-term residency zone in Outer Horner, they wait their turn to reenter their country. So Phil, gaining the support of the other Outer Hornerites and hiring two giants as his personal policy enforcers, begins to tax the Inner Hornerites for staying in his country. He settles in the end to accept the disassembling of the Inner Hornerites as sufficient payment. The story chronicles Phil's tyrannical rise to power and his attempted Inner Hornerite genocide.