Why a Booktrail?
1862: President Lincoln enters purgatory as he struggles to grieve and to let his tragically dead son go.
Lincoln in the Bardo
What you need to know before your trail
The American Civil War rages while President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son lies gravely ill. In a matter of days, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns to the crypt several times alone to hold his boy’s body.
From this seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss. Unfolding over a single night, Lincoln in the Bardo examines how we live and love when we know that everything we hold dear must end?
Locations
Reset- America/ USA - Washington DC
- A: Oak Hill Cemetery
- B: Lincoln Memorial
- C: The White House
- D: Ford's Theatre
Travel Guide
Visit Washington DC
The novel focuses on that one night, as Willie’s spirit is in the bardo (the space between life and death, lingering between states of reality).
For Lincoln himself, it’s a night of purgatory and pain. Through factual and fictional quotes, this is a journey of that pain, the suffering and strength during one evening.
The result is a historical and cultural insight of Lincoln, his family, and of himself as a man. There are many places dedicated to or associated with the man around the city – the memorial of course and the biggest one there is – The White House itself.
Oak Hill Cemetery
“In the procession to Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown, two white horses draw the hearse bearing the little boy who had only known happiness. But black horses drew the carriage in which sat the worn and grief-stricken president”
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Lincoln in the Bardo
Destination: Washington DC Author/Guide: George Saunders Departure Time: 1862
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