#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZEThe “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 inventedNamed One of Paste’s Best Novels of the Decade • Named One of the Ten … 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
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One of the most thought-provoking books I’ve ever read. Having known others who couldn’t get past the first few pages, I didn’t expect to like it, let alone love it. Could not put it down.
What a strange, fascinating, outrageous story! If you can’t handle the weirdness of the first few chapters, you won’t get through this book. I found the writing style fascinating, broken up by multiple points of view and culled from historical references. There were times when the cast of characters was overwhelming and the plot meandered, but the sheer audacity of the writing style and basic premise of the novel more than made up for that in my mind. I would hesitate to recommend this every reader I know, but if you are thinking of reading it, go for it!
I loved this book. It took me a while to figure out what was going on here. The mixture of nonfiction and fiction is intriguing, and the characters Saunders draws are mesmerizing. I could feel Lincoln’s grief, and the confusion of the spirits. Truly an innovative and imaginative work. I liked it enough to read again. Highly recommend.
I’m so grateful to a friend of mine who recommended this book, because I don’t think I would have picked it up otherwise (despite really loving George Saunders’s writing) — I’m just not usually drawn in by historical fiction. That said, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a book like this before, and though the material is anything but light, I just felt a sense of delight while reading it. Saunders just brings the concept of storytelling to a whole new level, and he takes what might otherwise be a cacophonous, chaotic concept and runs with it in a brilliant way. The supernatural elements of this book feel perfectly at home with the historical narrative, and the result is a poignant, sometimes humorous, and thoroughly sincere exploration of grief, family, war, mortality, and US history. Can’t recommend it highly enough!
I’m reviewing this book here because I’ve already told everyone I know how much I liked it. The premise is wildly original. Abraham Lincoln’s child Willie dies of typhoid fever early in the Civil War. The novel tells the story of Willie stuck in a graveyard purgatory. He and hundreds of other souls, who can’t accept their death and allow themselves to move on to whatever comes after, lurk in the graveyard together as ghosts, hiding from, and occasionally facing, the things from their lives which haunt them. The devastated President Lincoln visits nightly, and, unbeknownst to him, his display of love for his deceased son throws the ghosts, who haven’t seen such love since their deaths, if at all, into pandemonium.
The writing style is as strange and inventive as the premise. It’s told in the voices of scores of characters. The book is written as a compilation of fragments of their personal accounts. Saunders writes of the historical events (the death of Willie and the coping of his father, for example) by splicing together sections of actual letters, diaries, and other writings from witnesses. He writes of the ghostly world, the bardo, from the many perspectives and voices of its deceased inhabitants. It can be difficult to get the hang of the style in the opening pages, but it all flows together smoothly and it’s easy to get a hang of. Remarkably, each character felt so complex and detailed that I wondered a few times if they were based on real people. And the memories that haunt the ghosts -what they did, what they didn’t do, what obsessed them, how they spent their time and energy and affection- made me reflect on what’s valuable in my own life.
It won the Man Booker Prize. It has catapulted George Saunders, an already famous author, to an even higher level of literary fame. Reviewers and writers have said it was a “masterpiece,” “devastatingly moving,” and “heartbreaking and hilarious.*” Also, I have lent it to three people since reading it, and I remember them describing it as “amazing,” “unbelievably good,” and a book that “had like, a thousand perspectives from all these different voices — it was just so good.” Take their word for it.
*Zadie Smith, People, USA Today
Wow. What a gut-punch this was. The best book relating to the grieving process that I think I’ve ever read. This goes on my Favorites Shelf. Read it. Other than that, I’m speechless – or maybe wordless – for now. Whoa.
This is currently my favorite book of all time. Usually I don’t like writers who do tricks with their prose and a lot of readers found this novel difficult to read because a lot of it looks like quotes from other sources. Some are some aren’t. I found the best way to read it is just read. Don’t worry about the formatting. You get in the rhythm and then can’t put it down. Lincoln visits the grave of his recently buried son and is surrounded by spirits (unbeknownst to him) who are funny, tragic, sad. It was a work of genius. Bravo George Saunders.
I thank NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for providing me an ARC copy of this novel that I freely chose to review.
First, in case you have not read the book or anything about it, and wonder what the bardo of the title refers to, it is a Buddhist concept (in Tibetan Buddhism, it seems, and I’ve read that Saunders is a Buddhist) referring to an intermediate state between death and rebirth (between two lives on Earth).
Now that we’ve cleared that out, if you follow my blog, you might remember that I reviewed some of the books that had made the long and the short-list of the Booker Prize. I enjoyed some of them more than others, but I had not read the book that actually won the Prize, and when I saw it come up on NetGalley, I could not resist. I had heard and read a great deal about it, and I felt I had to check it for myself.
This is not a standard novel. It is composed of fragments, divided into chapters, some that appear to contain extracts from a variety of written historical documents (diaries, newspapers, books, memoirs) which provide background to the events, Lincoln’s presidency and the tragic death of his son, Willie, victim to typhoid fever. Other chapters, also fragmented, contain first-person observations by a large variety of characters that ‘live’ at the cemetery where Willie is laid to rest. Call them ghosts, spirits, or whatever you prefer, they seem to have been there for a while, some longer than others, and they interact with each other, while at the same time talking about themselves and taking a keen interested on little Willie Lincoln and his father. We have the spirits of black and white characters, young and old, men and women, well-off citizens and paupers, people who had lead seemingly morally exemplary lives and others who had gone down the wrong path, some who had taken their own lives, others who had died by accident or in bed. There are some actively atoning for their sins while others only seek entertainment. They are a motley crew, and although we hear mostly from three of these characters (Hans Vollman, Roger Bevins, and the Reverend Everly Thomas) and from Willie, they all make important contributions and help create a whole that is more than its parts.
The structure of the novel is puzzling and intriguing, and although it made me think of postmodernism and pastiche, the methodology used to construct the novel is not an attempt at emptying it of meaning or making us reflect upon the artificiality and futility of seeking truth and understanding. The death of a child (even if we are not parents, most of us are close enough to the children of relatives and/or friends to be able to imagine what it must be like) is a terrible tragedy and although there are light moments in the novel, there are touching and moving ones as well. Some of the fragments emphasise the diverse opinions and judgements about Lincoln and his presidency (by the way, although some of these fragments are real documents from the period, others have been created by Saunders, and it is not evident while reading which ones are which), but everybody agrees on the devastating effect the death of his son had over the president. The hopeful ending might feel somewhat surprising but is open to interpretation, like the rest of the text.
There are fragments that will make readers wonder about religious beliefs, others that question the social order, racial ideas, and the Civil War. But I fully understand the puzzlement of many readers who leave negative reviews on this book (and the negative reviews are many) stating that they don’t understand anything, it goes over their heads, and it is not really a novel. Some readers, familiar with Saunders’s short-stories, prefer those to the novel, but as I have not read them, I cannot comment.
Here some examples of the style of writing in the book (in this case, I definitely recommend prospective readers to check inside or get a sample to see if it suits their reading taste).
…only imagine the pain of that, Andrew, to drop one’s precious son into that cold stone like some broken bird & be on your way.
Mr. Collier (shirt clay-stained at the chest from his fall, nose crushed nearly flat) was constantly compelled to float horizontally, like a human compass needle, the top of his head facing in the direction of whichever of his properties he found himself most worried about at the moment.
The money flows out, tens of thousands of men wait, are rearranged to no purpose, march pointlessly over expensive bridges thrown up for the occasion, march back across the same bridges, which are then torn down. And nothing whatsoever is accomplished.
Blame and Guilt are the furies that haunt houses where death takes children like Willie Lincoln; and in this case there was more than enough blame to go around.
The book collects a large number of endorsements and reviews at the end, and I’ve chosen this one by James Marriott, from The Times, for its briefness and accuracy: ‘The book is as weird as it sounds, but it’s also pretty darn good.’
In sum, this is a highly experimental book, for readers who enjoy a challenge and don’t mind a non-linear narrative, who enjoy literary fiction not focused on plot, and are intrigued by new writers and what makes critics tic. It is not an easy read, but it is a rewarding one and I, for one, hope to catch up on some of the author’s previous books.
I’m late to the party, but glad I did not read Lincoln in the Bardo until now, in lockdown for the new plague. George Saunders catalogs all sorts of agonies among the ghosts who linger, unsatisfied, around young Willie Lincoln’s soul as the President pays a midnight visit to his son’s burial place. He also catalogs the minute and grand pleasures that make life stunning and dear. This odd, formal book does what literature should do: makes you wonder about the texture of life.
In this, George Saunders’ first novel, he imagines a distraught Lincoln after son Willie’s death as well as the hijinks of the cemetery’s inhabitants. Told almost in the form of a Greek chorus, the dead in the “bardo” ( a purgatory-like Tibetan afterlife), hold forth on their lives in a single night and attempt to help Willie cross ober to the next stage of death, Saunders often overreaches , but ultimately produces a good tale of life, death and grief.
The book isn’t for people who need to get drawn in from page one. It’s twisted and hard to follow for the first few chapters. Once you understand what’s happening, though, it’s quite good. It remains on the strange side, but you start feeling sympathy for and a connection with the various characters. If you are a fan of the strange or bizarre and you love historical fiction, I recommend you read this book.
This is the most unusually structured book I’ve ever read. The build isn’t something most writers could pull off – probably only George Saunders. ‘Lincoln and the Bardo’ helped me understand how innovative approaches can be exercised in story creation. I feel like Saunders created a tapestry of small tales that yielded an intimate portrait of the mind of Abraham Lincoln. Brilliant. And I was thrilled to discovered that George Saunders and I are from the same city in West Texas – Amarillo! (Beloved Amarillo.) No wonder I feel kindred to him.
This award-winning, New York Times bestseller is NOT for everyone. It was George Saunders’ first full-length novel, published in 2017 and its style is definitely experimental.
LINCOLN IN THE BARDO takes place in 1862, the middle of the American Civil War, around the death of 11-year-old William “Willie” Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s son. And, for me, the beautifully written passages featuring these two characters were my favorites–Willie trying to understand the very adult concept that he has lost his life and our former President weighed down by incomprehensible grief in the middle of a national crisis.
But as the title implies, most of the “action” takes place in the bardo, with many other characters. The bardo — a Buddhist term referring to the transitional space between death and rebirth — is populated by many deceased people from different time periods, all having conversations, arguing, and exchanging anecdotes about their lives. These sections of the book read much like a play — where one character in the Bardo says one thing (followed by the name of who is speaking) and then a second adds detail or opinion and so on. Together, their dialog often tells one story.
Juxtaposed to these “Bardo” pieced-together stories, are quotes lifted from actual historic documents, describing events from writers of this era. What’s interesting is how much the actual quotes mirror those from the Bardo, in that historical record-keepers are seldom in agreement about what happened, just as people seldom agree on what actually happened during an event they all witnessed.
This is one of those books that you will either love or dislike (“hate” seems too strong). I am mostly in the latter category. I appreciated the book’s novelty. I found a compelling portrait of parental grief. And it was interesting to contemplate what might exist immediately after death. But I found the style kept me at a distance and the conversations among those in the bardo were much less interesting than the story of Willie and his father. And YES, I do recommend everyone give this one a try.
This is not an easy read but it is a highly original piece of work that shows you that there is still scope for doing new things with the written word. THE NOVEL IS NOT DEAD YET!
I started to read this book but I couldn’t get past the first chapter. The format was not a satisfying read. While I love the subject I couldn’t get past the format. I tried to give it to friends but no one wanted it after reading the first few pages.
This book absolutely gutted me. It took me a page or two so grasp what was happening. The newspaper articles coupled with the story brought Lincoln’s grief to the surface and it was palpable. I immediately re-read the entire book to ensure I had received all I desired from it. I loved the characters in the bardo. Beautiful sad story
Although my adjectives used to describe this book might make one avoid this book, don’t. Somehow it is something that makes us wonder. Do we all look at death in different ways?
Many of my friends loved this book so I think its a good read read for many. It just wasn’t for me.
I experienced it via audiobook – there were too many characters and to much scattered conversation for me to follow, and what I considered gratuitous sex.
This is a book I will never forget. It’s the story of Lincoln’s grieving his son’s death and the son’s journey into death. I would read this again