There is the bardo, and there are the dead, often still full of regrets, delusions and, even in death, despair. We see that there is no simple joy or nothingness ahead. Yet Saunders offers the reader a glimpse into the afterlife that makes a naïf of Lincoln. He finds relief in that the deceased are “either in joy or nothingness.” Because they will find peace, his acts are redeemed, and his son is at rest. Of boys.”) by believing in God (“a great beast”) and the existence of the human spirit beyond the body. Saunders’ Lincoln rationalizes all the killing (“A mountain. How could such a human find solace for the death he has caused and witnessed? There must be a moral here for those of us who feel, and have done, less. Yet the President still afforded him a fortnight to make “the necessary preparation for the awful change that awaits him.” As it happens, those two weeks ended the day after Willie’s death. Lincoln had the slave-trader hanged - the only one ever killed by the U.S. Even the worst person deserved compassion. He once wrote of his opponents, “If slavery did not now exist amongst them, they would not introduce it.” The President did not fault the nature of those he killed. History shows that Lincoln’s own deep love for all must have worsened his anguish. They (possibly) enlighten Lincoln with their own experiences, and in return can hear his thoughts-enabling Saunders to mine the mentality of a President whose “magnanimity” William Seward once called “almost super-human” as he confronts an increasingly bloody civil war.īut in war, empathy for the enemy doubles the burden. To do this, they must form a union to free the boy from bondage. But watching Willie become consumed by demons, Vollman, Bevins, Thomas and their compatriots attempt to compel the President to return. Lincoln says, and the disembodied 11-year-old hears, that he will come back again. In the night, Abraham Lincoln has come to the crypt to cradle Willie’s corpse (a “worm,” to his son’s spirit).
That is, until they witness a marvel: a living loved one who does not abandon the deceased. Each encourages Willie to move along to the true afterlife, because the bardo is dangerous for children.
Everly Thomas, unable to determine his life’s great sin. Willie’s ghost befriends a trio: the naked, excessively endowed printer Hans Vollman, who just wants a conjugal reunion with his wife the many-eyed, -nosed and -handed Roger Bevins III, who swears he “changed mind” about his suicide over his gay lover and the fright-faced Rev.
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