#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 started listening to this book on audio last summer but gave up. It’s just too complex for that format, at least for me–too many voices in rapid-fire conversation, all the quotations from contemporaneous accounts, etc. I just could not keep track of what was going on, but I felt that this was definitely something I would give another try in print. (I actually read it on my kindle.) I’m glad that I did. It was much easier reading when I pictured each character in my mind and heard a distinctive voice for each. I could take my time with each chapter devoted to excerpts (what some have referred to as “all those footnotes”) and could simply pass over the citations that were so awkward read aloud. As I did so, I was fascinated by the contrasts and connections between them and began to see how they were part of the novel’s themes. In addition, I think the page layout is intentional. It leaves wide spaces between speakers, spaces that parallel the distances between them. (This is something I look forward to exploring further in a hard print version.)
If you’ve read anything about this book, you probably know that the Bardo is the place (space?) between life and death in the Buddhist religion. It’s 1862, the Civil War is raging, and President Lincoln’s 11-year old son Willie has just died following a devastating illness (most likely typhoid fever). The action takes place inside Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown, where Willie’s body has been laid to rest in the Carroll family mausoleum. The speakers in the novel–sometimes in conversation with one another, sometimes as individual narrators–are spirits who reject the fact that they have died and linger in this world due to to their attachments to and regrets made in life. They cannot even accept any words relating to death, referring instead to their caskets as “sick-boxes” and their dead bodies as “sick-forms.” The speakers multiply in numbers as the story proceeds, each with his or her own story, but three in particular hold it together: Roger Bevins III, a young man who slit his wrists in despair, then changed his mind–too late to be saved; Hans Vollman, a businessman killed when a beam fell and struck him at his desk; and the Reverend Everly Thomas. These three feel a particular compassion for the youngest among them, including Willie Lincoln, who has just joined them in the Bardo. The spirits in the Bardo have the ability not only to observe but to pass through or enter into the living–including the grieving Lincoln, who keeps returning to his son’s tomb. It is their desire to help him move beyond this loss, to help Willie to cross over, and to accept the mistakes and regrets of their own lives as well as the fact that they are far beyond “sick” themselves.
Interspersed with their stories and conversations are chapters consisting entirely of short quotations or excerpts from books, memoirs, and testimonies regarding the Lincolns and the period surrounding Willie’s death. Each chapter focuses on one specific aspect: Lincoln’s appearance, Willie’s illness, the party held at the White House while Willie was in decline, the funeral procession, etc. Saunders has carefully laid out the excerpts in these chapters to demonstrate that what happens is not so much fact as a matter of perception. Some of the observers agree with one another while others present a totally different picture. In one, for example, various observers claim that Lincoln was the handsomest or ugliest man they had ever seen, had a most pleasant or most disagreeable countenance, was strong and well-built or gangly and ape-like, etc. The theme of perception–visual, emotional, and intellectual–plays into the stories of the spirits lingering in the Bardo as well.
It wasn’t long before I was totally engaged with Lincoln in the Bardo. While it may not be the easiest read, it is definitely worth the effort required. This is one that will stick with me for quite some time, and I look forward to reading it again in hard copy.
A ghost story for for readers with a literary bent. The setting is the graveyard where Abraham Lincoln’s young son has just been interred, and the narrators are the spirits of others who dwell inside those gates, trapped between the world of the living and the place beyond. A unique novel not easily forgotten.
Horrible. My book club read this and we all hated this book. It was chaotic and offensive. It was so boring only a few of us were actually able to make it to the end.
Astonishing, wonderful, indescribable book you MUST read
Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders, is an astonishing and wonderful book. Saunders shows us Abraham Lincoln’s terrible, unthinkable position as a man ordering war to achieve freedom, who is also a loving father suffering grievously the loss of his dear son Willie. In Saunders’ portrayal, Lincoln realizes to the depths of his being the terrible price his orders exact from other families whose sons are dying to accomplish Lincoln’s goals.
If this was the sum total of this novel it would be very good, but Saunders crafted so much more here. This is an imagination unleashed, giving us the life stories of many characters in a unique and spellbinding way, sometimes hilarious, sometimes horrifying, and always sympathetic. This book reminds me of Our Town by Thornton Wilder, yet I promise it is nothing like that (also wonderful) tale. I find it impossible to describe this book well; you MUST read it.
My feelings for this one are complicated. There were moments I felt like I absolutely loved this book and other moments where I was dreading reading yet another word of it. But why? No doubt, I should have picked a less hectic time of year for this read. Lincoln in the Bardo deserves, no requires, dedicated reading. It’s a complex book by design. The characters are numerous, the plot is scattered, and the telling of the story as a whole is literally all over the place.
But I liked, no loved, young Willie. He is an endearing character and it was impossible not to pulled in by his plight. I so badly wanted him to be at peace and to understand what had truly happened to him. Likewise, I felt pulled in by the stories of many of the other ghosts as well. Although some were truly repulsive, I couldn’t help but be intrigued by the stories they each wanted to tell.
I do wish one formatting difference was made. I think the story would have flowed much better if the reader was aware who was stating each passage before, rather than after, what was said. I found myself looking ahead to determine the speaker with each narration change. Maybe some readers found it obvious who was speaking but I was not always able to tell who it was simply by what was being said.
I can see why this received great reviews and I can also understand why some people absolutely hated it. This is one book where it’s impossible to recommend it or not. Liking it is definitely going to be based on individual preference.
This was a difficult book to follow. I first tried to listen to the audio version, with all the different parts performed by many actors. I found that reading the story was much easier. This story is part historical fiction, part fantasy. The backdrop of the story is the death of President Lincoln’s son , Willie. The story transpires with passages of accounts by people who actually lived during this time, and the “ghosts” residing in the Georgetown cemetery. Though a challenge to read, its themes of death and the afterlife give you much to think about. Having visited all the Lincoln sites in Springfield, IL, I found the historical aspect interesting.