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West Branch Fiction Book Discussion

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

West Branch's monthly hybrid fiction book discussion. For September, we're reading Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders.

Join us for West Branch's monthly book discussion group! We read a variety of contemporary fiction and non-fiction and meet once a month for a thought-provoking conversation.

Please register for in-person, as seating is limited. Contact discussion facilitator Dani Linn at dtlinn@aurorapubliclibrary.org for more information or for a Zoom link to join us virtually if you're new to the group.

Ask at the West Branch Circulation Desk for print copies; your copy will be on the hold shelf if you're registered.

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln's beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. "My poor boy, he was too good for this earth," the president says at the time. "God has called him home." Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returned to the crypt several times alone to hold his boy's body.

From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a thrilling, supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory, where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state—called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo—a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie's soul.

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