Rise Up Singing
Lincoln in the Bardo
By George Saunders
14 Sep, 2023
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George Saunders’s 2017 Lincoln in the Bardo is a short supernatural/historical novel.
Assured by doctors that their son Willie would recover, President Abraham Lincoln and First Lady Mary proceed with a lavish party. Willie spends his last hours before dying of typhoid listening to the sound of revels elsewhere in the White House.
Neither the President nor the First Lady take the loss well. Abraham Lincoln’s actions have consequences for the boy’s afterlife.