George Saunders Talks ‘Lincoln,’ Life And Art

The real-life death of Abraham Lincoln’s young son is reimagined as a meditation on grief and moving on in the novel “Lincoln in the Bardo.” Author George Saunders joins us.

In February of 1862, Abraham Lincoln’s beloved 11-year-old son Willie died in the White House. His young body was taken to a tomb in a nearby cemetery. Newspapers at the time reported that the grieving Lincoln returned to visit the tomb and hold his son’s body – unable to let go. That is the spark for George Saunders’ new novel “Lincoln in the Bardo.” A Tibetan Buddhist meditation on life and death, grief and moving on. It’s powerful. This hour On Point, George Saunders on life, death, acceptance and Lincoln. — Tom Ashbrook

George Saunders, author and writer. Professor creative writing at Syracuse University. Author of the new novel, "Lincoln in the Bardo." Also author of "Tenth of December," "CivilWarLand In Bad Decline" and "The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip."

The Economist: George Saunders’ comic, supernatural, moral novel — "The entire book seems to consist of nothing but epigraphs, which themselves turn out to be either historical sources (some real, some invented) or the chatter of spirits, indiscriminately mingling with one another. After a while, the reader begins to recognise the unique cadence of each spirit. The purposefully confusing form adds a disorientating but dramatic element to the book, and forces the reader to focus."

Boston Globe: Six questions for author George Saunders -- "Six questions for author George Saunders
That image of Lincoln with his dead child across his lap was riveting. It was just an image for a while. Then I was driving through the Berkshires one day, and I had this spontaneous vision of what that image would look like on a stage. And I started writing it as a play. I don’t know why. The role of an artist is not to poke at it too much. Take the fact that it’s fascinating to you as a welcome sign."

New Yorker: Who Are All These Trump Supporters? — "The speeches themselves are nearly all empty assertion. Assertion and bragging. Assertion, bragging, and defensiveness. He is always boasting about the size of this crowd or that crowd, refuting some slight from someone who has treated him 'very unfairly,' underscoring his sincerity via adjectival pile-on (he’s 'going to appoint beautiful, incredible, unbelievable Supreme Court Justices')."