#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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Blown away by the concept and the book
There’s not another book like it. Very original yet very emotional also. I felt each characters pain.
Read October 22, 2018
I do not know how to review this book. At all. I didn’t know what to expect except that I would either love it or hate it – there doesn’t seem to be any kind of middle ground here and now that I have read it I can see why. For me, I loved it. Even at parts that made me cringe a little.
I do not have the smart teacher-words that my friend who read this with me, has. She had a major light-bulb moment and saw it for what it essentially is, but I have not read postmodern books. I have not read Beckett and do not know absurdism. So I cannot review this as she did.
I have however, been with friends who have lost children. My former boss lost a child and I walked that path of grief with her for 4 years – there is not time frame for grief and this book explores that. To lose a child to such a sickness, especially when first told that he just had a cold and in the public eye as they did had to magnify the grief process. Mary Todd Lincoln was never truly sane and when Willie died, her tenuous hold on that was snapped for forever. I have to wonder how close to the insanity that she dealt with, Abraham Lincoln himself came close to suffering himself. His actions after Willie’s death [visiting the crypt and removing his body from the coffin] show that his tenuous hold was also very close to breaking.
I love this writing and how it explores both the President’s sanity and travels towards insanity, how the dead interact with each other [and the discoveries that they make because of Willie being there] and the…lies? that they are willing to tell each other to be able to stay in this world – in the Bardo. Even the parts that were difficult were amazingly written – the way the words flow – the lyrical way the grief was expressed – it was gorgeous; even when it wasn’t.
I will say here that the audiobook was tough. Not all the different narrators [I actually really liked that aspect[, but what is just hinted at in the book [in regards to the language/cursing] is full out spoken in the audiobook and initially was off-putting. Until I realized that it wasn’t gratuitous [even when it seems that it is] and was needed in the audio to fully show just how vile these people [The Barron’s – WHO you end up feeling so sorry for by the end] truly are and how abhorred they are by the other spirits who are there around them. So I will also say here that if you have a problem with language and are off-put by that [and that is fine; typically I am too], PLEASE DO NOT LISTEN TO THE AUDIOBOOK. Read the book, it is glorious and fantastic etc etc, but stay clear of the audiobook or you are going to be completely taken aback and not want to finish.
I totally see what this won the Man Booker – it is much deserved; I really loved this book. And now I have Massive. Book. Hangover.
Takes a bit to get used to the writing style but once you do it is gripping.
Wish I could give 3.5
Such interesting approach to story telling. Took me quite awhile to figure out what was going on. Have to commit to it. After understanding, the last part of book flowed and the ending was beautiful
Read this book for book club. Glad I was able (at the time) to get it from the library. Did not like it at all! It’s about a fictional Lincoln in Purgatory, and not a very interesting Purgatory at that!
Transcendent.
Very boring.
I really did not care for this book.
One of the most overrated books ever. Seriously it’s one note, and off key at that.
Read carefully and stick with it! A tour de force!
Interesting and thought-provoking
Wonderfully imaginative and poignant as well.
boring
I was very put off by this collection of third-hand newspaper articles. Didn’t make it far.
couldn’t deal with it.
A bizarre fantasy requiring too much suspension of disbelief.
Interesting look at Lincoln through a novel.
Not an easy read, but uniquely styled and moving in an eerie and haunting way. I definitely will not forget this book.
I don’t get it. Boring book