Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel
Feb 2017 · Sold by Random House
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63 reviews
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About this ebook
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • ADAPTED FOR THE METROPOLITAN OPERA AND IN DEVELOPMENT AS A FEATURE FILM
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 New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century • One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years • One of Paste’s Best Novels of the Decade
“[Lincoln in the Bardo] demonstrates that even the unspeakable—civil war, familial grief—can be named through a close, humanizing narrative voice.”—Amanda Gorman for Time, “25 Books That Capture This American Moment"
February 1862. With the Civil War less than one year old, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies gravely ill. In a matter of days, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. 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 that breaks free of its realistic framework into a thrilling, supernatural realm, deploying a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices—living and dead, historical and invented—to ask a timeless question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end?
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 • One of O: The Oprah Magazine’s Best Books of the Year
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 New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century • One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years • One of Paste’s Best Novels of the Decade
“[Lincoln in the Bardo] demonstrates that even the unspeakable—civil war, familial grief—can be named through a close, humanizing narrative voice.”—Amanda Gorman for Time, “25 Books That Capture This American Moment"
February 1862. With the Civil War less than one year old, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies gravely ill. In a matter of days, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. 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 that breaks free of its realistic framework into a thrilling, supernatural realm, deploying a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices—living and dead, historical and invented—to ask a timeless question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end?
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 • One of O: The Oprah Magazine’s Best Books of the Year
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • ADAPTED FOR THE METROPOLITAN OPERA AND IN DEVELOPMENT AS A FEATURE FILM
The “devastatingly moving” (People) first novel from the author of Tenth of December: a moving and original father-son story featuri...
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Ratings and reviews
63 reviews
Dmitry Mikhaylov
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October 29, 2017
This book is really hard to read because of the way it's written: as a narrative of talking ghosts and quotations from historical sources. If I had wanted to read about historical facts, I wouldn't have chosen a fiction book. There are a couple of things that I like about this book: the ideas about how ghost feel themselves in the Bardo, and the way their lives are judged by God.
4 people found this review helpful
Alexandre Pedro
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June 28, 2022
I read the sample and it started out normal enough, with a few quirks I thought were quite original until it devolved into disjointed quotes and fragments. Points for originality, I guess, but this is not something I enjoy.
Nathan Martin
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July 25, 2018
This book has received a lot of praise, and it definitely is teeming with
originality. But I question how important originality is if the work isn't
that enjoyable to read. The fragmented storytelling style makes the book
hard to follow and almost impossible to really fall into. I have respect
for what he did, but I read fiction to enjoy it. This failed me in that
respect.
3 people found this review helpful
About the author
George Saunders is the author of eight books, including the story collections Pastoralia and Tenth of December, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. He has received fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Guggenheim Foundation. In 2006 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. In 2013 he was awarded the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction and was included in Time’s list of the one hundred most influential people in the world. He teaches in the creative writing program at Syracuse University.
George Saunders is the author of eight books, including the story collections Pastoralia and Tenth of December, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. He has received fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Guggenheim Foundation. In 200...
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