Lincoln in the Bardo by George SaundersMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Lincoln in the Bardo, George Saunders, 2017
2017 Booker Prize winner Lincoln in the Bardo is a story about Abraham Lincoln and his 11-year-old son Willie Lincoln. While in the Bardo, a place between life and death, the consciousness of the deceased can still apprehend words and prayers spoken on its behalf, which can help it to navigate through its confusion and move on. Willie, who succumbed to typhoid fever, is visited by the grief-stricken Abraham Lincoln at the crypt. The supernatural characters attempt to maneuver Lincoln in a way to convince Willie to move on from the Bardo.
The book follows an experimental structure and form in how it is told. The author intersperses facts and almost-facts cited from books and news accounts in a type of pastiche dialog that tells the story. It was hard to follow at first, but once I got used to the writing style, I enjoyed the story very much. Well, at least up to halfway through the book. The second half of the book I found hard to follow. There were many ghostly characters introduced, and I often wondered who was "talking" and questioned how what was being discussed fit into the narrative as a whole.
Genre: Historical Fiction, Experimental literature, Magical Realism, Biographical Fiction
I give this book a 3.5 out of 5.
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