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As part of its recent “100 Best Books of the 21st Century“ project, The New York Times Book Review is interviewing some of the authors whose books appeared on the list. This week, George Saunders — who had three books on the list, including his story collections “Pastoralia” and “Tenth of December” — joins host Gilbert Cruz to discuss his novel, “Lincoln in the Bardo,” and how he came to write a historical novel after decades spent writing largely futuristic short stories.
“Years ago,” Saunders says, “my wife and I were up in D.C., and her cousin pointed out, up on a hill, a crypt. We could just barely see it. And she said, ‘Did you know that when Lincoln was president, his son Willie died, and supposedly the gossip of the time was that Lincoln had gone into the crypt several times, in this extreme grief he was experiencing, and in some way interacted with his son’s body.’ I said no, I did not know that. It blew my mind. … I’m a Civil War buff a little bit. It seemed like a very dramatic time in our nation’s history and also so central still to who we are and who we’re trying to become. Then there was also a more crass technical element, which was that I love the idea of something being confined to a small physical space over a short time. That seemed like something I could maybe do.”
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The post George Saunders Reflects on His Novel ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’ appeared first on New York Times.
