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Preparing this book and its discovery paths.
Book
Preparing this book and its discovery paths.
Reader fitReaders who enjoy formally experimental narratives built from many short, voiced fragments.
A formally experimental novel that focuses on Abraham Lincoln’s grief after the death of his young son and locates most of the action in the bardo — an in-between realm between life and rebirth. The narrative accumulates voices — quoted fragments, imagined testimony, and the voices of trapped souls — across the course of a single night to press on mourning, attachment, and letting go.
Chapters are presented as a collage of short voiced fragments, citations, and overheard speech; that structure creates a choral, documentary feel where no single viewpoint dominates. The language often swings between wry, mournful, and intimate, with frequent abrupt cuts that reward slow attention and re-reading. The emotional core is concentrated and compressed: scenes of parental loss and haunted attachment recur in microbursts rather than long scenes, so readers who appreciate restraint, tonal shifts, and formal invention will find much to value. Those seeking linear plot or restful continuity may find the fragmented architecture distancing.
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George Saunders is an American writer. He is best known for his short stories and his novel Lincoln in the Bardo (2017), which won the Booker Prize. Saunders's short stories have been published as several collections, including CivilWarLand in Bad Decline (1996) and Tenth of December: Stories (2013).
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