I first picked this up in 2017 on a trip to Cambridge, and started reading it right there at the bookstore. Though not what I had been expecting, I was into it. Unfortunately, at that point I was also getting ready to fly back home, and in the hassle I got distracted—and this is definitely a book that requires attention. It's not that it's the prose is dense (it actually flows very nicely, with a lot of humor, too), but the style is deliberately fragmentary and it's easy to lose the rhythm if distracted.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
This is a novel about the death of Abraham Lincoln's son, Willie, and Lincoln's emotionally charged visit his grave late at night. That's it. On the surface, at least. The structure might be described as a "faux oral history"—Saunders arranges a string of excerpts from fictional (I assume all of them are fictional, but there might be a couple of real ones thrown in there?) biographies/history books/collected letters, etc. That premise alone sounds golden to me, but, as always with this author, there is an eerie twist: these are not the only voices that make up the narrative. Soon enough, the testimonies of Willie's fellow souls in the limbo emerge, and we are treated not only to a heartbreaking story of a father's loss of his son, but to multiple stories that reflect on various aspects of existence, from everyday to outrageous: intimacy, marriage, sexuality, social station, inequality, slavery. Another central theme is historiography, and the way it was handled was so subtle and masterful I was in awe.
Set during the Civil War, this could have been gimmicky, even corny. What we get is in fact an honest tale, respectful in its treatment of the themes and characters, which keeps the tackiness at bay. The humor is never ridicule, the commentary is never too self-conscious. It flows, it truly does.
There is something both all-timey and completely fresh about this novel. Whether this has barely piqued your curiosity, or it's screaming at you with bells and whistles, it's one I urge you to pick up.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
This is a novel about the death of Abraham Lincoln's son, Willie, and Lincoln's emotionally charged visit his grave late at night. That's it. On the surface, at least. The structure might be described as a "faux oral history"—Saunders arranges a string of excerpts from fictional (I assume all of them are fictional, but there might be a couple of real ones thrown in there?) biographies/history books/collected letters, etc. That premise alone sounds golden to me, but, as always with this author, there is an eerie twist: these are not the only voices that make up the narrative. Soon enough, the testimonies of Willie's fellow souls in the limbo emerge, and we are treated not only to a heartbreaking story of a father's loss of his son, but to multiple stories that reflect on various aspects of existence, from everyday to outrageous: intimacy, marriage, sexuality, social station, inequality, slavery. Another central theme is historiography, and the way it was handled was so subtle and masterful I was in awe.
Set during the Civil War, this could have been gimmicky, even corny. What we get is in fact an honest tale, respectful in its treatment of the themes and characters, which keeps the tackiness at bay. The humor is never ridicule, the commentary is never too self-conscious. It flows, it truly does.
There is something both all-timey and completely fresh about this novel. Whether this has barely piqued your curiosity, or it's screaming at you with bells and whistles, it's one I urge you to pick up.
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