Lincoln in the Bardo
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE
The “devastatingly moving” (People) first novel from the author of Tenth of December: a moving and original father-son story featuring none other than Abraham Lincoln, as well as an unforgettable cast of supporting characters, living and dead, historical and invented
One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years • One of Paste’s Best Novels of the Decade
Named One of the Ten Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post, USA Today, and Maureen Corrigan, NPR • One of Time’s Ten Best Novels of the Year • A New York Times Notable Book • One of O: The Oprah Magazine’s Best Books of the Year
February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.” Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns, alone, to the crypt several times to hold his boy’s body.
From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state—called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo—a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie’s soul.
Lincoln in the Bardo is an astonishing feat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Formally daring, generous in spirit, deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a testament to fiction’s ability to speak honestly and powerfully to the things that really matter to us. Saunders has invented a thrilling new form that deploys a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices to ask a timeless, profound question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end?
“A luminous feat of generosity and humanism.”—Colson Whitehead, The New York Times Book Review
“A masterpiece.”—Zadie Smith
Reviews
I read the paperback. The first 80 pages were interesting and moving. What follows is pretentious overblown sludge masquerading as a supposedly darkly comic surreal horror novel choking on ghostly despair and after death. Might have worked at 1/2 the length.
By FreethinkerX
I couldn’t handle the pseudo-quote, jumpy, half-sentence, stylized writing. Really bad.
By ktbamb
This book is supposed to be about Lincoln. Content seems difficult to read. What a waste of money…
By literature fan
Indescribable. Utterly original. One of a kind!!Not an easy read at times and demands great concentration but is perhaps the most moving and rewarding reading experience I have had in years. A fraction of the length but has the depth found within Pierre’s sections in Tolstoy’s War and Peace, that sense of grace and love and understanding. Absolutely and utterly essential. I will be reading it again for sure. Bravo Mr Saunders!!!
By savedbyvivaldi1
It’s been 5 days since I finished this and I’m still waiting to be moved. Apologies for an unhelpful review. If you’re like me and trying to read more contemporary literature and finally move past the classics, please don’t start here.
By doug funnie