Lincoln in the Bardo

Author: George Saunders
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Random House Publishing, 2018
Pages: 368
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: 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, the president says at the time 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.

Review: I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person, but this book was challenging to follow. I had read that it's a complex and sort of twisted novel, so I opted to listen to it thinking the different voices would help. I was wrong. I was in and out of following the plot. What I liked was the historical references and the unique look at the afterlife. On the downside, there were entirely too many characters.

Interesting concept; failure to fully execute.