Lincoln in the Bardo
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 a story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its 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.
Themes & atmosphere
What you might want to know about Lincoln in the Bardo
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
On the night Lincoln visits his son Willie's body in a Georgetown cemetery, the dead around them, who do not yet know they are dead, narrate. The novel is built almost entirely from their voices and from period sources.
Yes. Lincoln in the Bardo won the 2017 Booker Prize, making George Saunders one of the few American writers to win after the prize was opened to U.S. authors. It was Saunders's debut novel after a long career as a short story writer.
Yes. Lincoln in the Bardo is structured as a chorus of voices, including ghosts and historical-document fragments. The form takes adjustment. Most readers either embrace the experiment or find it alienating. The audiobook with 166 narrators is widely recommended.
Lincoln in the Bardo was written by George Saunders, published in 2017 by Znak.
Lincoln in the Bardo is 440 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Lincoln in the Bardo takes most readers 7 to 10 hours to finish.
Lincoln in the Bardo is a standalone novel by George Saunders, not part of a series.
Lincoln in the Bardo is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.