#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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I did not care for it and did not finish it.
I give George Saunders 5 stars for attempting greatness. He doesn’t quite get there because of the discursive nature of real people’s dithering. Many emotional moments, much humor and weirdness, much that is true and right. Read it and disagree with me, but read it.
Difficult to follow
Horrible
Hard to follow.I hated this book.It’s the first book I have not been able to finish.I donated the book to the local library for their book sale.
I read this book for a book club. I could not get into it at all. Had a very hard time finishing it
Very strange.
It was bad, which surprised me because of all the glowing reviews.
I had been waiting to read this book! And wow, what a unique novel. Who would ever think a book centered around the death of Lincoln’s son Willie could ever be this engaging—and funny as well? The characters in this book are all ghosts who don’t know they are dead. Often they are unreliable narrators, disagreeing on such mundane things, as the whether the moon was full and the color of Lincoln’s eyes. But they agree Lincoln is broken by Willie’s death which parallels the brokenness of the nation. His sorrow is pervasive. Willie’s spirit won’t leave because he waits for his father’s visits. The ghosts team up to convince Willie he must depart the bardo before it is too late. I wasn’t prepared for the unconventional structure – monologues and dialogue mixed with historical commentary in block form with attribution’s centered beneath each bit. But I quickly fell into the groove and found it delightful and often hilarious. What choked me up? A line such as this from Lincoln, “Pale broken thing. Why will it not work. What magic word made it work.”
Very difficult to follow or understand. No interesting.
Weird
Had a hard time getting into this book so I did not finish it.
Listen to a fuller voice.
This book was not easy to get into, but once I did, and I admit I had to double back a few times, it was a most rewarding reading experience. There are 166 characters.
I suppose one could categorize this book as historical fiction, with a heavy emphasis on “historical.” The book quotes from a few texts in the public domain, but makes up quotes create a sense of verisimilitude, quite effectively, I’d say.
For quite some time I’ve been interested in the life and times of Abraham Lincoln. Perhaps my favorite book about this period is Doris Kearns Goodwin’s A TEAM OF RIVALS: THE POLITICAL GENIUS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. That book brought home to me the extremely high mortality rate of children and women in childbirth in the nineteenth century. And so this imagined death and brief afterlife in the bardo of Willy Lincoln as well as the comparisons/commentary about the carnage of the Civil War were poignant.
Uniquely set with unforgettable characters and an abundance of imaginative energy. Dealing with serious topics of loss, and dying in ways that made me laugh, cry, and reflect on life.
It is seldom I cannot get into a book: I could not slog through this one.
I did not enjoy reading this book. I read it because I felt I should.
Took some time to get into the groove but glad I did! What a good book!
Lincoln in the Bardo
A thick read that messes with yr head.
His take on the afterlife, though a period piece, mixed with historical fiction, I think, is dead on.
That people are people, no matter the times, whether living or dead.
That getting inside of someone else’s head will be troubling to most.
Sometimes, it takes a child to point out the obvious to grownups.
And to do what you should.
And even, to go first.
The first half of the book built slowly. The second half ran like an express train, fast and powerfull.
Theologically, who knows if any of this is right or not.
Regardless, a great read.
What an amazing imagination marrying the family of our 16th (and greatest) president together with an unpredictable and innovative story.