William “Willie” Wallace Lincoln
Under cover of darkness, a grief-stricken President Lincoln slipped out of the White House alone on Feb. 22, 1862, on a highly personal mission: to visit the marble crypt holding the body of Willie, his recently deceased son. Welcome to a moving story of death, grief, and the powers of good and evil told by author George Saunders in his first novel, Lincoln in the Bardo. The book, which takes place at the dawn of the Civil War, plays out over the course of one tragic night in a place populated by ghosts. It grapples with a profound and timeless question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end?
Saunders talks about how this story was created and what he learned in the process of writing it. He’s joined by actor Scott Sedar, who reads passages from the book.
Saunders won the Man Booker Prize for Lincoln in the Bardo (Random House), which is available for sale and signing.
