Lincoln in the Bardo

Title: Reading from Lincoln in the Bardo

Author: George Saunders

Lexile Level: 1220-1385

Qualitative Level: (Based on SCASS Qualitative Measures Rubric: LITERATURE or SCASS Qualitative Measures Rubric: INFORMATIONAL TEXTS)

• TEXT STRUCTURE: Very Complex
• LANGUAGE FEATURES: Very Complex
• MEANING/PURPOSE: Very Complex
• KNOWLEDGE DEMANDS: Very Complex

Source: Live from here. (2017, October 14). An excerpt from 'Lincoln in the Bardo' - George Saunders [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2yA4TI1kS4

Format or text type: Video recording of author reading an excerpt from his novel

Summary & Justification: George Saunders performs a reading on Prairie Home Companion from his 2017 novel Lincoln in the Bardo. In it, President Abraham Lincoln is in his son's crypt, and Lincoln's thoughts are narrated to the reader by two ghosts in the graveyard who have inhabited his mind in order to do so. (Saunder's speaks to this bit of craft--the problem of how to narrate Lincoln's thoughts--in the piece.) What we hear is a man grieving the inexplicable loss of his son while he simultaneously tries to make sense of the loss so many individuals are enduring at his hands as president during a civil war. He navigates this liminal state, or bardo, individually and as a nation, as all people did during this time in U. S. history.

Additional useful notes:

• Peer supported, at grade level.
• Winner of the Man Booker Prize and Audie Audiobook of the Year