Lincoln in the Bardo: A Novel

Saunders' debut novel defies conventions, offering a powerful work of supernatural historical fiction built of grief, character study, denial, hope, and humor. I admit Saunder's style hasn't always been my cup of tea--one of the main reasons that it took me so long to get around to reading this novel--but I'm shocked to report that I read it in a single day, devouring it in just two long sittings. The collection of voices and and research here makes for a fast and compelling ride, and although it took me some time to get completely sucked in, Saunders won me over in the end.

If you read fiction, you should read this. I suspect there's something here for nearly everyone.

Bizarre and beautiful.

The story is told by numerous characters. It feels like a play, with the characters speaking in turn as much to the audience as to each other. It reads like an e.e. cummings poem. There is humor and deep grief within the story. It both inspires and satisfies curiosity about history during the Civil War period. I absolutely loved this book.

A bit like reading an acid trip, but really amazing. The audio book is really worthwhile.

I listened to the audiobook, largely because, knowing how I dislike history, I thought I’d bog down if I tried to read in print. At the beginning of the audiobook, I began to worry that with 166 narrators and footnotes(!) interspersed, it would be chaos. I’m pleased to report that I was neither bogged down nor was it at all confusing. I can’t imagine a better way to present this novel in audio form. I think even that the multitude of voices brought the bardo to life (so to speak) better than print could have done. The novel itself is a beautiful meditation on grief, regret, vengeance, and, perirpherally, the Civil War.

What in the wide wide world of sports did I just listen to?

A strange story strangely told. The flipping back and forth between narrators was a bit jarring at first, but I did become used to it. I sense this is the type of book one either loves or hates, not much in between. While I found it fascinating i am not sure I would recommend it to anyone i know as reading material.

Excellent, unique, and captivating story! I listened to the audiobook and the cast was great. This is my best read of 2024 so far. It made me laugh and cry several times. The beauty of the world, the pain of the world. With a large cast of characters, Saunders can draw many lives and show how each is important to its individual. Read this book!!!

In February 1862, President Abraham Lincoln's eleven-year-old son, Willie, caught a cold. Assured by his doctor that it wasn't serious, Lincoln tried to carry on with his normal routine. It quickly turned to typhus, however, and Willie died. Heart-stricken, the President had him interred in a borrowed crypt, until such time as he could be moved to a cemetery in Illinois next to his brother. Newspapers of the times reported that Lincoln then went back to the crypt and held his dead son. From this snippet of alleged history, George Saunders created an extremely inventive and moving novel exploring the nature and limits of grief.

In Buddhism, a bardo is a transitional state between life and rebirth. According to Wikipedia, "the Tibetan Book of the Dead is a text intended to both guide the recently deceased person through the death bardo to gain a better rebirth and also to help their loved ones with the grieving process." Saunders choses to set his novel in this liminal space and people it with a wide variety of characters, each of whom is clinging to something in their past life, whether a wrong or a person or something else, and thus fail to move beyond. A key commonality between these characters is that they have not accepted that they are dead, but think of themselves as sick and somewhere "else" only until they are better and return to the world of "before". When they do accept both their past and their demise, they vanish. Into this bardo, Willie appears and is befriended by Roger Bevins, Hans Vollman, and Reverend Thomas. They try to help him pass quickly to the place beyond, as the bardo is particularly dangerous for children. In order to help Willie, they must also help Lincoln deal with his grief.

Although this plot is in itself quite creative, it is the structure of the book that is most inventive. It is composed entirely of quotes, from both characters in the book, but also historical sources, both primary and secondary. All quotes are attributed, but it is never clarified which are historical and which invented. This deliberate blurring of fact and fiction and the inclusion of quotes which contradict one another (were Lincoln's eyes blue-gray or brown? were the Lincolns negligent in holding a state dinner the night during which Willie would die, or was it commendable of them to continue with governing while a child was sick upstairs?) leads the reader to think of historical sources as only somewhat true and fiction possibly true. While it might sound as though the novel would be terribly disjointed and hard to follow, it is so well-constructed that it reads almost like a regular novel. It is a tribute to Saunders abilities as a writer that he was able to pull off such a literary experiment.

Overall, the novel is both brilliantly constructed and written, and incredibly moving. Each character in the bardo has a story, a reason for wanting to remain in this world, and a unique voice. Given that there are 166 characters (each represented by a different person on the audio edition), that is a feat. In addition, the grief of a parent who loses a child (never mind two in the case of Lincoln) is beautifully rendered and even tied to the losses being incurred in the ongoing Civil War. Well-deserving of the Man Booker Prize, Lincoln in the Bardo is a stunning piece of literature.

"Lincoln in the Bardo" covers approximately the first 24 hours after the burial of Willie Lincoln, the president’s third son, from typhoid fever. Upon his death, Willie enters a “bardo,” a Buddhist state between your earthly life and your next reincarnation. Willie's body is placed in a crypt in Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown, a place full of dead souls who won’t admit to themselves that they’re dead and fear moving onto their next plane whether that be heaven or hell. Willie’s eventual realization that he’s dead and that he should move on from the bardo is facilitated by three ghosts — Hans Vollman, Roger Bevins III, and The Reverend Everly Thomas. These ghosts act as narrators of the novel, although narrators probably isn't the right word.

The novel is split unevenly between brief chapters of historical quotations that give a glimpse into the depth of the Lincolns’ grief over the death of Willie, the fact that a state dinner was being held at the White House on the night of Willie’s death, and the growing carnage of the Civil War, and Willie’s time in the bardo alongside its many other inhabitants. This second portion of the novel, is its majority, is rendered like the dialogue of a play, where different ghosts show up and tell their stories or comment on the action with Bevins, Vollman, and Thomas being the main participants. These ghosts form a goofy parade of lost souls, each inflamed by the injustice of no longer being alive and eager to tell his or her story.

The book ends with President Lincoln leaving the cemetery with the resolve that the Civil War must be won what ever the human costs meaning that Willie’s death in a way represents all of the young soldiers who have and will die.

As you might expect this is quite an odd book at times amusing at others quite touching but I also found it a bit of a mixed experience. I felt that the most effective parts are when we see President Lincoln grieving over his son but this is interspersed with a lot snappy dialogue that whilst it reads quickly seems to take a long time to to get anywhere. This is my first experience of George Saunders works but I will certainly be on the outlook for more.

Terrific read. Unique and fun.

The Bardo has been popping up in all sorts of books lately, so I figured I ought to tackle this book while I was stuck on this word. This novel is unusual, a narrative pieced together out of various formats of text, with the characters being represented almost as if one was reading a play most of the time, but not quite to the extent that one could easily produce the play on stage just from this book.
The story is about President Lincoln dealing with his grief at the loss of his son Willie, and about Willie's adventures in limbo while his father is struggling to say goodbye.
This book was a challenge to get into at first, though it was still easier than Shikasta, another experimental novel form I was reminded of at times while reading this book. Once I got used to it though, this was a fairly straightforward read. The fantasy elements of the afterlife were fun, and I liked all the different ghost characters and the ways they adapted to life after death.

An ingenious and deeply moving philosophical fantasy reminiscent of the Spoon River Anthology and centered around one of America's great characters, Abraham Lincoln.

"His mind was freshly inclined toward sorrow; toward the fact that the world was full of sorrow; that everyone labored under some burden of sorrow; that all were suffering; that whatever way one took in this world, one must try to remember that all were suffering (none content; all wronged, neglected, overlooked, misunderstood), and therefore one must do what one could to lighten the load of those with whom one came into contact; that his current state of sorrow was not uniquely his, not at all, but, rather, its like had been felt, would yet be felt, by scores of others, in all times, in every time, and must not be prolonged or exaggerated, because, in this state, he could be of no help to anyone and, given that his position in the world situated him to be of either great help or great harm, it would not do to stay low, if he could help it."

These are Lincoln's thoughts of solace to himself, struggling under the weight of grief both for his dead son Willy and the scores of battle dead soldiers in the war.

Saunders finds an original way to discuss these old issues of death and mourning, through the spirits that haunt the Oak Hill cemetery in Georgetown we get a merging of theological ideas of death, and follow young Willie Lincoln on his final journey. It is both heart-rending and liberating. There is torture and misery throughout life and the afterlife, and once we acknowledge this and "embrace suffering" we gain our freedom to live.

A tale both vast in scope -- across history and many viewpoints -- and utterly focused on one man's experience of intense grief over a short span of time: a single night in a cemetery where his young son has just been interred. That sounds ponderous, but the book is anything but! Every word in it is uttered (or written, or thought) by a specific individual, so it reads like a play -- and it is often funny or surreal, which keeps things lively. The prose is simply gorgeous, and the evocation of spiritual torment after the death of a beloved child is intensely moving at times. Such an experience changes you forever, inwardly if not outwardly in an obvious way. Saunders does seem to be proposing that Lincoln's grief changed his approach to the Civil War in important ways, but to me that is less "the point" of the book than all the many stories of the narrators that are revealed over time. Some of the Roger Bevins III passages pierced me with their beauty!

I came to this book intrigued by the fact that it won the Booker Prize, of which I am a fan. The author presents us with a book that is completely out of the ordinary, as its structure is atypical. The core of the plot is the death of Abraham Lincoln's son; the boy remains in purgatory or limbo at the moment of his death, and within this limbo, he interacts with other fictional characters. Meanwhile, the story revolves around the before, during, and after the boy's death, recounting various passages only through quotes. The premise is interesting; could it have been a better book if the author had told it in a "traditional" manner? Possibly. (Translated from Spanish)

I am such Saunders fan. I’ve read every one of his short stories I could get my hands on. But I couldn’t get into Lincoln on the Bardo, though I tried several times.

Possibly because I didn’t grow up in America, and wasn’t educated there either, which means I only know the basic facts about Lincoln, and couldn’t get into the atmosphere or feel anchored in his time period.

Still I enjoyed the writing in the even chapter that I did read, and for that alone could possibly come back to this novel at a different time in my life. Possibly in the Bardo;-)

I listened to this book and it was an unusual format. It was written like a play, but there were chapters with nothing but quotes and footnotes, giving the reader the sense of the contemporary viewpoint. The whole story is about Willy Lincoln's death in 1862 and his parent's grief over that death. After the funeral, Willy doesn't transition immediately to heaven or hell, but lingers in the crypt waiting for his father. Other ghosts in the cemetery are also lingering in their "sick boxes."

Really liked this book, funny and serious. Conversations among a very strange set of ghosts haunting a graveyard, sprinkled in with quotes from Lincoln biographies about the time when Lincoln’s son Willie died. I loved the language, I don’t know or care how authentic it was to the time or place, it just really worked. A little science-fictiony in a way, or fantasy, or something like that.

October 4, 2022
Willie Lincoln, Abe's favorite son, dies of a fever at age 11, at the height of the US Civil war. His body is placed in a mausoleum in the Oak Hill cemetary in Georgetown, and his spirit remains in the cemetary, sitting on top of the mausoleum. The cemetary is occupied by the souls of many dead, who quarrel, tell their life stories, and observe the doings of the living who come to the graveyard. The evening after the internment, the grieving Abe returns to the mausoleum, and removes Willie's body for a moment from the coffin (the characters in the graveyard call it a "sick-box"). The living have never done this before, and this event astonishs all the souls in the graveyard. When Abe returns again, the graveyard folk are even more astonished, and many crowd in the chapel, then flee when Abe puts the body back into the tomb.
The novel is told in short quotes, both from history and from the various graveyard voices. The characters and relationships are only gradually revealed. The life stories of the characters in the "bardo" (a Buddhist terms for the temporary abode of the dead before reincarnation) are all very poignant.
I read this novel in paperback and enjoyed it enough to purchase it later in hardcover.

If I had known that this book is considered experimental, I wouldn't have read it even if my life depended on it. I'm not a fan of those authors who, in an attempt to be creative, leave the reader on edge because they thought it was innovative to omit periods or disregard the syntax of the sentence.
Buuuuut... since I went in practically blind, I didn't know that. And while it's true that at first it throws you off a bit, it's actually a quick read.
Why is it experimental? Because of its structure: it's a choral narrative (multiple narrators) that has a historical part and a fictional part. In the historical part, the narrative is composed entirely through quotes. Some are true, others are invented. Some say one thing, others the opposite. And with this, Saunders makes it clear that the so-called "historical rigor" is a deception. You can try to be objective and write only the truth and nothing but the truth, but even if you take one quote and not another, you are making an intentional cut of that truth. Some said Lincoln had blue eyes, others gray, that he was stupid, that he was intelligent, that he was brave, that he was a coward, that he fought for his ideals, that he was crazy...
The thing is... the fictional part also seems to have the same structure of quotes. First, the narrator's speech (remember there are multiple), and then, below on the side, the name of that narrator... and yes, it seems like a mess, but I repeat, it's not a difficult book to read or understand.
To write it, the author was inspired by a real event: in 1862, the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, lost a son who was only 12 years old. And it seems that this man was so devastated that he would go to the cemetery every night, take the coffin out of the mausoleum, and rock his son's corpse... time and time again. From this man's pain, this story emerges, where not only the loss is addressed, but also how death is just another stage of life that largely depends on how you have lived it.
That said, after the death of little Willie Lincoln, there’s a huge uproar because... Willie doesn’t really die. He sees his father coming back for him every night and refuses to leave for good... what if he does leave... how will his dad find him? So he remains in a state between life and death: the bardo. And he's not alone. In this kind of "limbo," all sorts of spirits linger, tied to "life" by unfulfilled desires or pending debts. Strangely, in the bardo, none of them knows they are dead. They all think they are "sick," that the coffin is a sick person's box and that when they heal, they can go back to fix the mistakes they made in life. The issue is that there is a mysterious law that prohibits children from staying in the bardo for more than a few hours. If they do, they will be harshly punished. This leads many of these ghosts to become desperate about the child's future, so they will try to convince Willie to leave... but then, why don’t they leave too?
What I liked is that it's a different book. When you read regularly, sometimes you seem to encounter the same stories, the same characters, the same conflicts, sadly conforming to continuous repetition and thinking that "everything is already written"... until you come across books like this, which break all the known molds and mutate into true breaths of fresh air.
P.S.: I’m down and I get back up! I reread the review and I think I'm not going to convince anyone. (Translated from Spanish)

"At the center of every person was suffering, the end that awaited us, and the many losses we had to experience on the way to that end." On February 20, 1862, Willie Lincoln, son of Abraham Lincoln, dies of typhoid fever. The nation is at war, a brutal Civil War, and his parents are hosting a reception while their child is upstairs. Willie is buried in Oak Hill, where he will be visited by Abraham Lincoln, a father more than a president, to mourn his death without knowing that in doing so, he is anchoring his son's spirit to this world and the dangers that entails. The cemetery itself is a yard full of spirits that we will get to know. Willie finds himself in the bardo, a term from the Buddhist imaginary, equivalent to the Christian limbo, a place between death and new life. Here arrive the souls of the recently deceased, the issue being that they do not know they are dead, but instead believe they are ill. Meanwhile, the president is criticized for throwing a party with his convalescing son. The most important aspect of this book is its structure, the way the story is told, wonderfully original. Regarding Lincoln and reality, the author relies on documents from the time, presenting differing opinions, not all witnesses remember the events in the same way; in many cases, they contradict each other. For some, it was a full moon night; for others, the rain obscured the view. What’s incredible is that these are real testimonies collected by the author. And then there’s Willie’s story in the bardo, and this is the most juicy part of the book. Accompanied by two very unique characters, Willie begins to understand his reality, that he has just died and must move on to another life. These characters are the ones that will bring humor to such a gloomy story. In the bardo, there are all kinds of people; everyone wants to share their experiences, the most varied voices. They are all tied to something they could not achieve in their previous life; others wander about, too afraid to move on. I insist, the structure is not easy; I had to start from scratch after reading nearly thirty pages, but once you understand the author's intention, it becomes fascinating. The characters are endearing; they make you go through different feelings, prompting you to question death and the passage of life; at times, you laugh out loud. In short, a masterpiece of the 21st century. The best thing I have read in a long time. (Translated from Spanish)

This book is historical fiction related to the death of Willie Lincoln, President Lincoln’s son, during the American Civil War. Willie dies, but his spirit gets stuck between life and death, in a state of existence known as the bardo. The format of this book is atypical, and not for everyone. Some chapters contain a series of quotations from actual articles of the time, with the source listed below it. Other chapters contain a variety of ghostly characters speaking, almost like a play. At first this structure was somewhat perplexing; however, once I decided to read the text and ignore the sources and names, it flowed better for me. I admired the author for his creativity. While I would not like every book to take this format, I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. It provided lots of food-for-thought on the value of acceptance and letting go. It also contained philosophical elements related to slavery, freedom, and change. Recommended to readers of historical fiction that are open to unusual formatting.

I really struggled with this one. I listened to the audiobook which may - or may not- have been easier. I didn't mind the profanity or explicit sexual references (though I'm not sure they added to the narrative). I found the voices confusing and the lack of a linear narrative confounding. However, I do know that is what appealed to many other readers. Interesting concept, innovative style but it didn't really work for me. Maybe I'll try again later.

So, I was shopping Bloomsbury's annual end of financial year sale the other day, when I was suddenly possessed by someone who reads award winning literature; not wanting to waste the money spent on the book, I wanted to read it before the exorcism, so I cracked it open as soon as it arrived. The ripping-off-the-bandaid method for personal growth.

Half-kidding aside, while I do generally use literary award short lists as guides of what not to buy, Lincoln in the Bardo has intrigued me for some time - from the descriptions, it came across as an adult version of Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, and while this sale was on it seemed as good a time as any to give it a try.

It turns out there is a lot in common with The Graveyard Book in terms of setting and characters, but it goes worlds beyond, too. It's an odd book. Written as something akin to witness testimony, only in present voice, and interspaced with historical quotes about the Lincoln administration and Willie Lincoln's death, each complete with proper citations, it's constructed in a way that is unique in my (admittedly limited) literary experience.

Upon Willie Lincoln's death and internment, Willie fails to move on as he should and a battle erupts in the graveyard over his eternal soul. Saunders populates the graveyard cast with a wide and varied collection of souls, good and bad, all flawed, although Saunders seems to prefer a larger percentage of twisted and corrupted. Perhaps this makes sense in the construct of the story's logic, but there were moments that teetered precariously towards gratuitous.

Is this story Man Booker worthy? I wouldn't know, but it is brilliantly written; unique; startlingly creative. Did I like it? Yes, it was a compelling story; one I couldn't put down and read in two sittings. Do I think it's the acme of the literary form? No, but probably not far from it. Did I find it flawless? No. What was the reverend's fate? Saunders invested an awful lot of intimate detail in the reverend to just leave his fate unexplained. And I found the ending ... odd. Abrupt. In any other literary form, I'd say there's a sequel in the works.

LIncoln in the Bardo is in the purest sense, a ripping good story; one that just happened to win an Important Literary Prize, and that's why I'd recommend it - the prize, in this case is irrelevant.

Off now to that date with an exorcist...

Lincoln in the Bardo has so many elements that I love - deep historical research, a creative writing style, humor, a supernatural setting, a bit of Buddhism, and a reflection of the humanism of a president I've always admired. I was blown away by how Saunders painted a picture of life in the 19th century, tugged on the old heartstrings, and touched on the profound.

Quotes:
On suffering, and compassion:
“His mind was freshly inclined towards sorrow; toward the fact that the world was full of sorrow; that everyone labored under some burden of sorrow; that all were suffering; that whatever way one took in this world, one must try to remember that all were suffering (none content; all wronged, neglected, overlooked, misunderstood), and therefore one must do what one could to lighten the load of those with whom one came into contact; that his current state of sorrow was not uniquely his; not at all, but rather, its like had been felt, would yet be felt, by scores of others, in all times, in every time, and must not be prolonged or exaggerated, because, in this state, he could be of no help to anyone…”

On Lincoln’s reason for compelling the Confederates into remaining in the Union; it reminded me of his Gettysburg Address. Without a doubt the South seceded for no other reason that slavery, and Lincoln’s response, to go to war, was motivated by keeping the Union together, and I thought this articulated his view of the bigger picture well:
“Across the sea fat kings watched and were gleeful, that something begun so well had now gone off the rails (as down South similar kings watched), and if it went off the rails, so went the whole kit, forever, and if someone ever thought to start it up again, well, it would be said (and said truly): The rabble cannot manage itself.”

Very original novel since it has no narrator. The work progresses through the testimonies of characters and quotes from works and newspapers. But I haven't been able to get hooked, sometimes due to some confusion on my part regarding the events, and because I haven't fully understood what the author wants to convey. (Translated from Spanish)

An Unconventional View of Love and Loss

Let’s begin with what you really want to know about the critically praised Lincoln in the Bardo: will you like it? The answer is, Maybe. If you’re in the mood for something different, especially for historical fiction (though this really isn’t exactly a historical novel), if you like the portrait of a man and his son’s relationship, not to mention an era, painted as a jumbling of sad, funny, and horrific vignettes, then you may be the reader for this book. If not, you may want to move on to something else.

George Saunders takes readers back to the American Civil War, to the personal pain suffered by Lincoln grieving over the death of his cherished little boy, Willie (William Wallace, the third son of the Lincolns) to render an impression of the president, the times, and to a larger extent the foibles, follies, conceits, blindness, and prejudices of humankind in general. Lincoln and Willie serve as a beacon of hope as they illustrate the strength needed to love completely and the power of such a love to inspire and free even a cast of transitional spirits as motley as these of their delusions and fears.

These acts of acceptance and transformation transpire during one evening in Georgetown’s Oak Hill Cemetery. Here readers encounter a collection of spirits in sort of an anteroom to heaven or hell, the bardo, like the Tibetan way station on the journey to the next earthly life, or perhaps a Catholic purgatory, where you do penance before entry into heaven.

As a reader, you will have guides, three men well versed in the rules governing the bardo and the occupants of the Oak Hill station. And quite a trio they are: Hans Vollman, who spends his time nude with an of varying massiveness; Roger Bevins III, a gay suicide over unrequited love, who sprouts multiple eyes and appendages; and the Reverend Everly Thomas, who saw his fate, fled it, and wanders wondering how he erred during his self-proclaimed exemplary life. These three first meet Willie and then Lincoln and are struck and moved by the affection of father for son and versa. And when, so taken with the two, they fear Willie will resist leaving — as most always the very young, the innocent souls — depart quickly, to be near his father, and then face all the disappointment sure to follow.

While an interesting experimental approach and often illuminating (for instance, showing the compassion of Lincoln for those on both sides who have to be sacrificed for the preservation of an ideal), it may not be quite the grand reading experience many expect. You may wish to read excerpts before committing to the book.

Listened to audio book and read a small bit when I couldn't listen. I loved the idea of the book, but I didn't appreciate the format or the number of characters, (I believe totaled 160??). The story had some beautiful and amusing moments, but not enough for me to recommend. Considering the number of rave reviews, if you do read it, I highly recommend the audio book, on many lists as a top 10 audio.

I was easily 2/3 through this novel, debating whether to carry on, composing a “WTF” review in my head, when it all suddenly clicked. I had reached what Saunders himself has called, in one of his essays on fiction-writing, the novel’s Apparent Narrative Rationale – “what the writer and the reader have tacitly agreed the book is ‘about.’” What this clever and maddening book is “about” is, in my opinion, beautiful and moving, and worth every word.

Cult short-story writer and documenter of the weird, George Saunders, takes as the starting point for his first novel a kernel of historically documented fact -- following the death of his 11-year-old son Willie, a grief-stricken Abraham Lincoln paid a number of clandestine visits to the cemetery where his child had been interred, possibly even removing Willie’s embalmed body from its mausoleum shelf for one last look, one last embrace.

Saunders takes this bizarre (if understandable for any parent imagining themselves into the depths of Lincoln’s heartbreak and despair) behavior and turns it into something rich and strange by imagining an alternative explanation for Lincoln’s morbid obsession: Willie’s soul has been trapped in the “bardo,” the Buddhist approximation of Purgatory, where the dead must wait until they have confronted the sins of their lifetimes and they can move on to their next incarnation. Willie’s soul is in particular danger because, as an innocent child, he has no sins. He is trapped in the bardo by his love for his father, and his memories of the life they had together. Only his father can save him, by letting him go, by freeing him to move on.

Willie is not alone in the Bardo, and (although he doesn’t know it, and is only vaguely aware of the danger his son is in) Lincoln has allies among the dead, souls who are touched by the devotion of the new arrival, and determined he shouldn’t be stuck, as they are. The cemetery is a teeming necropolis, and Saunders’ bardo is a bit like the Disneyland Haunted House ride, with lost souls singing little stream of consciousness songs to themselves about the dark secrets that have brought them here, and their deep denial of their deceased status, as they cling to the pretenses of the lives they left behind.
The chapters set in the cemetery alternate with chapters that establish the context: chapters about Lincoln as a man, and as a President, about his mentally fragile wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, about the conduct of the war, and about Lincoln’s successes and failures as Commander-in-Chief, as the body count rises. These chapters consist entirely of quotes from contemporary sources – admiring, critical, self-serving, maddeningly contradictory. Lincoln’s eyes are blue, they are grey, they are brown with gold flecks – each one from someone who claims to have been intimate with the President, staring into those mesmerizing eyes many, many times. In other words, trust no one. (Particularly, don’t trust the Writer. I wonder how many of those quotes are the work of the purest imagination of one Mr. Saunders … ?)

The cacophony can be maddening – the dead tell their stories, the sources tell their stories, Lincoln grieves. As I said, WTF? But then, there comes a moment when you realize what Saunders has been working toward. And it all become a very moving and rewarding read about how Lincoln was freed from his own “bardo.” And what turned a maddening and contradictory man into the one who righted our great National Wrong, and became one of our greatest Presidents.