📖 Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo (2017) is a daring novel that fuses historical fact, experimental form, and metaphysical imagination. Set in February 1862, during the Civil War, it dramatizes President Abraham Lincoln’s grief over the death of his son Willie, while exploring the liminal space of the “bardo”-a Tibetan Buddhist concept of the transitional state between death and rebirth.

📖 Chapters 1–5: Entering the Bardo

• The novel opens with the voices of Hans Vollman and Roger Bevins III, two spirits trapped in the bardo. Vollman, a middle-aged printer, died suddenly before consummating his marriage, and his spectral form grotesquely exaggerates his unfulfilled desire. Bevins, a young man who committed suicide after heartbreak, sprouts multiple eyes and hands, symbolizing his longing for sensory experience.
• Their grotesque appearances are not horror for horror’s sake but allegories of human attachment. Saunders uses these distortions to show how clinging to earthly desires distorts the soul.
• Into this surreal landscape arrives Willie Lincoln, the eleven-year-old son of the President, who has just died of typhoid fever. Unlike adults, children are not meant to linger in the bardo, yet Willie insists he must wait for his father. His innocence contrasts sharply with the grotesque forms of the other spirits.

📖 Chapters 6–15: The Chorus of Voices

• Saunders introduces a polyphonic chorus-snippets from memoirs, newspapers, and imagined testimonies. These fragments narrate the circumstances of Willie’s death and Lincoln’s grief.
• The effect is kaleidoscopic: history is not presented as a single truth but as a collage of perspectives, some contradictory, some unreliable.
• Reverend Everly Thomas, another ghost, joins Vollman and Bevins. Unlike them, Thomas has a deeper awareness of the dangers of lingering in the bardo. He warns Willie that staying too long could trap him permanently.

📖 Chapters 16–30: Lincoln’s Visit to Oak Hill Cemetery

• In one of the novel’s most haunting sequences, President Lincoln visits his son’s tomb at night. His presence electrifies the spirits, who marvel at a living man entering their realm.
• Lincoln cradles Willie’s body, whispering words of sorrow. This act convinces Willie that his father still needs him, deepening his reluctance to depart.
• The ghosts realize Lincoln’s grief is so powerful it disrupts the natural order of death. Saunders suggests that love and grief can bend metaphysical laws.

📖 Chapters 31–45: The Struggle of Attachment

• Willie’s refusal to leave mirrors the ghosts’ own struggles. Vollman clings to his unfulfilled marriage, Bevins to his lost pleasures, and Thomas to his fear of damnation.
• Around them, other spirits appear, each grotesquely embodying their earthly obsessions-lust, greed, vanity, regret. Saunders paints a gallery of human folly, showing how suffering persists beyond death when desire is unyielding.
• The bardo becomes a metaphor for the human condition: our inability to let go, even when release is necessary.

📖 Chapters 46–60: Collective Intervention

• The ghosts attempt to persuade Willie by merging their voices and experiences, creating a communal plea. This collective act reflects Saunders’ belief in the power of empathy and shared narrative.
• Lincoln’s grief becomes a focal point: his sorrow for Willie intertwines with his anguish over the Civil War’s mounting deaths. Saunders juxtaposes private loss with public tragedy, highlighting Lincoln’s burden as both father and president.
• The novel suggests that grief is not solitary-it reverberates through communities, nations, and even the metaphysical realm.

📖 Chapters 61–80: Transformation and Release

• Willie begins to understand he must move on. Vollman, Bevins, and Thomas guide him, offering compassion rather than coercion.
• Lincoln undergoes transformation too. His night in the cemetery strengthens his resolve to continue the war, despite its toll. Grief becomes fuel for duty.
• The ghosts witness Lincoln’s departure, realizing that grief can be both destructive and redemptive.

📖 Chapters 81–End: Resolution

• Willie departs the bardo, achieving peace. His release is bittersweet, symbolizing the necessity of letting go.
• Vollman, Bevins, and Thomas confront their own attachments, inching closer to acceptance. Their journey is unfinished, but Willie’s departure inspires them.
• Lincoln leaves the cemetery, carrying the weight of both personal and national sorrow, but with renewed determination. His grief becomes a crucible for leadership.

Themes and Takeaways

• Grief and Love: Love binds us even beyond death, but grief must eventually transform into release.
• Attachment vs. Release: Ghosts embody the dangers of clinging to earthly desires.
• History and Fiction: Saunders blends real historical documents with invented voices, creating a polyphonic narrative.
• Lincoln as Symbol: His grief humanizes him, while his resolve elevates him as a leader.