Lincoln in the Bardo

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK

The “devastatingly moving” ( People ) first novel from the author of Tenth of December : a moving and original father-son story featuring none other than Abraham Lincoln, as well as an unforgettable cast of supporting characters, living and dead, historical and invented

One of The New York Times ’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century • One of The Atlantic ’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years • One of Paste ’s Best Novels of the Decade

“[ Lincoln in the Bardo ] demonstrates that even the unspeakable—civil war, familial grief—can be named through a close, humanizing narrative voice.”—Amanda Gorman for Time , “25 Books That Capture This American Moment”

February 1862. With the Civil War less than one year old, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies gravely ill. In a matter of days, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns, alone, to the crypt several times to hold his boy’s body. From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story that breaks free of its realistic framework into a thrilling, supernatural realm, deploying a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices—living and dead, historical and invented—to ask a timeless question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end?

Named One of the Ten Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post, USA Today, and Maureen Corrigan, NPR • One of Time ’s Ten Best Novels of the Year • One of O: The Oprah Magazine ’s Best Books of the Year