Lincoln in the BardoBy George SaundersRandom House368 pp; $37As the world debates U.S. President Donald Trump’s fitness to govern, celebrated American author George Saunders is travelling back 155 years to the Civil War to drop in on another president in crisis, Abraham Lincoln. Saunders is best known for his four much-admired books of short stories, including Tenth of December, winner of the 2014 Folio Prize, but this week he launches his debut novel, Lincoln in the Bardo. Though it features a historical figure in the 16th President of the United States, don’t expect a conventional historical novel. “When I was writing Lincoln,” he says, “it was sort of a combinatorial thing – part me, part him. In a scene where Haden inhabits the president’s body, the ghost comes to understand Lincoln and feel compassion for him.

Source: National Post February 10, 2017 16:18 UTC