My edition has a sticker that it won the Man Booker Prize, and is among the best books of the 21st century according to the New York Times, and the claim that it was a #1 NYT best seller. And a quote from Golson Whitehead. And the horizon isn't just lighter, there's an orangish yellow.
George Saunders is 67 year old, 9 years after publishing this book, which seems to be his only book that is not short stories. He was born in Amarillo Texas, and grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, Oak Forest. He got an MFA at Syracuse 1988, where he's a professor since 1997. In 1981, he received a B.S. in geophysical engineering from Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado.
"I really love Russian writers, especially from the 19th and early 20th Century: Gogol, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Babel. I love the way they take on the big topics. I'm also inspired by a certain absurdist comic tradition that would include influences like Mark Twain, Daniil Kharms, Groucho Marx, Monty Python, Steve Martin, Jack Handey, etc. And then, on top of that, I love the strain of minimalist American fiction writing: Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Carver, Tobias Wolff."
The first thing I look up is Marble Alley, does it exist? Yes it did. Historically, it was located near Pennsylvania Avenue, in an area that is today occupied by the Federal Triangle—specifically where many government offices now stand.
The narrator is collection of 166 different ghosts. Hans Vollman, Roger Bevins III, and The Reverend Everly Thomas are main ones.
The references to outside works in George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo are a mixture of real, historical sources and invented, fictional ones. Saunders uses this hybrid approach to create a narrative that feels authentic while allowing him the flexibility to craft the story's emotional core.
Links:
New Yorker article about his MFA, "My Writing Education: A Time Line".
January 12 2026 NYT interview. He was an Ayn Rand selfishness right winger when he was at college in Golden Colorado. "I was a glowing knight of objectivity." He voted Reagan the first time. Saw old women moving rocks when he was abroad, that changed him. These people are the result of a system. That connected to his childhood Catholicism. There's a story where some down and out person wasn't seen, and a Christian comes up to him and says, "I see you." Specificity moves you beyond judgement.
He is interested in why we suspend our kindness, and in certain moments, forget it. He wonders why the messaging out of the White House is so cruel.
He says he's slacked off from meditating, and he notices some negative thought patterns creeping back in. He said "we" did a lot of meditation when he was writing Lincoln In The Bardo.
"You know those three things that you’ve always thought of? They’re not true. You’re not permanent, you’re not the most important thing and you’re not separate. So I think about it a lot, but I find it a joyful thing, because it’s just a reality check."
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