Lincoln in the Bardo

Starred review from August 8, 2016
Saunders’s (Tenth of December) mesmerizing historical novel is also a moving ghost story. A Dantesque tour through a Georgetown cemetery teeming with spirits, the book takes place on a February night in 1862, when Abraham Lincoln visits the grave of his recently interred 11-year-old son, Willie. The distraught Lincoln’s nocturnal visit has a “vivifying effect” on the graveyard’s spectral denizens, a gallery of grotesques who have chosen to loiter “in the Bardo”—a Tibetan term for a liminal state—rather than face final judgment. Among this community, which is still riven by racial and class divisions, are Roger Bevins III, who slashed his wrists after being spurned by a lover, and Hans Vollman, a “wooden-toothed forty-six-year-old printer” struck in the head by a falling beam shortly after marrying his young wife. As irritable, chatty, and bored in their purgatory as Beckett characters, Bevins and Vollman devote themselves to saving Willie from their fate: “The young ones,” Bevins explains, “are not meant to tarry.” Periodically interrupting the graveyard action are slyly arranged assemblies of historical accounts of the Lincoln era. These excerpts and Lincoln’s anguished musings compose a collage-like portrait of a wartime president burdened by private and public grief, mourning his son’s death as staggering battlefield reports test his (and the nation’s) resolve. Saunders’s enlivening imagination runs wild in detailing the ghosts’ bizarre manifestations, but melancholy is the novel’s dominant tone. Two sad strains, the spirits’ stubborn, nostalgic attachment to the world of the living and Lincoln’s monumental sorrow, make up a haunting American ballad that will inspire increased devotion among Saunders’s admirers.

Like an Impressionist painting that comes into focus as we soften our gaze, this first novel by the award-winning short story writer is, not surprisingly, a unique art form. "Bardo" refers to the Tibetan plane between death and rebirth; the novel, told from the multiple points of view of a cemetery community, is reminiscent of Wilder's OUR TOWN and the colorful epitaphs of Masters's SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY--only darker. Voices chime in with stories of lives and deaths, regrets and grudges as Abraham Lincoln mourns his son Willie, the newest member of the tribe. While it may take a few moments to acclimate to the quirks and syncopated rhythms of this unconventional novel, there's an undeniable appeal in hearing this impressive cast of narrators. By keeping our listening "gaze" soft, remarkable human forms come into focus. L.B.F. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

Starred review from January 1, 2018
It takes a full six minutes at the end of this unforgettable audio production to read the cast list of 166 actors: comedian Nick Offerman, author David Sedaris, Hollywood A-listers Carrie Brownstein, Don Cheadle, Lena Dunham, Bill Hader, Miranda July, Julianne Moore, Ben Stiller, Susan Sarandon, and Jeffrey Tambor, and others. The main challenge of Saunders’s Civil War–era novel is fragmentation. In addition to the plethora of characters to keep straight, the novel features several challenging elements of postmodern fiction: punctuationless sentences, a constantly shifting perspective, and a mélange of factual snippets and boldly fabricated sources. The effect, however, is a wonder brought to life in these performances. Sedaris steals the show as Mr. Bevins, a wry and lonely spirit who tarries in the titular bardo, mourning the lover who left him. Two other performances deserve special mention: Kirby Heyborne, a veteran audiobook narrator, more than holds his own in this star-studded cast, breaking listeners’ hearts with his quiet and sensitive portrayal of Mr. Lincoln’s recently deceased boy Willie. And one of the book’s best performances belongs to Saunders himself, who plays the Reverend Thomas, a timid man of the cloth who is haunted by sin—but what sin, however, he doesn’t know. If fiction lovers listen to just one audiobook in 2017—or ever—it should be this one. A Random House hardcover.