#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 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 Named 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
