Lincoln in the Bardo
George Saunders · 2017
Saunders's debut novel arrived fully formed as something unprecedented: a chorus of ghosts annotating American grief in a polyphonic structure that shouldn't work but devastates. It proved that experimental form and emotional directness aren't opposites. It also felt written for the exact historical moment in which it appeared.
The case against
Vollman's enormous swollen member is a running gag in a book about a dead child, and the tonal whiplash between vaudeville ghosts and presidential grief never fully resolves. The collage format mixes real and invented citations without telling you which is which, and reading hundreds of attributed fragments feels like assembling the novel yourself.
Best of Last 10 Years · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
if this one calls to you, so will these →
