Lincoln in the Bardo

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders won the Booker Prize in 2017. It's about one night, in a cemetery, in Washington D. C., in 1862. "Bardo" is a Tibetan term for the transitional period between death and rebirth, and this novel literally involves Abraham Lincoln, grieving over the recent death of his son, as he moves sadly among the undead. Most of the narration is the voices of these souls, many of whom are in denial about their condition. Interestingly, Saunders also includes a variety of actual nonfiction sources about Lincoln, and the effect is an echoing, kaleidoscopic mosaic. Although the voices are at times repetitive or juvenile, the meditations on grief and slavery are transcendent, and elevate the novel. There are passages I read and reread, struck by the beauty of Saunders's language. 

The novel is a quick read--over one hundred chapters in 340 pages. I feel like I've been tearing through these books. In the last month, I've been reading about one a week. It's mostly the works themselves: I am a slow reader by nature, and when the paperback edition of Karl One Knausgaard's My Struggle: 6 comes out later this spring, it'll take me at least a month to knock that one off. Still, it's satisfying to add notches to my belt.