Winner of last year's Man Booker Prize, and rightfully so. The book tells the story of the death of Abraham Lincoln's son Willy, who died of a fever at the age of twelve, during a banquet with two hundred guests the president and his wife were organising. Did they neglect their child? Should they have canceled the party? Why did he have to die alone in his room when his family was having fun?
The story is probably well known to Americans, less so to non-Americans, I assume, but it's nevertheless tragic. Saunders uses the story for a fantasy novel that is partly a collection of quotes from existing publications about the tragic event, and partly narrated by the ghosts that live in the cemetery where little Willy is buried in the family tomb. You get dozens and dozens of narrators, who never actually tell anything of any length, excepts small quotes, sometimes offered as parts of dialogues, sometimes as somewhat longer monologues. All ghosts have their own character, their own story, their own time where they came from. They are waiting to be allowed to enter the next realm or not. They are as ignorant of their fate as people who are alive, and as fearful of the next stage they will move to.
The reading experience is totally unique, and by itself that makes it worth to read the novel. At the same time, Saunders is stylistically sufficiently masterful to make all these voices come to life with their own tone and vocabulary, their own character, full of flaws and unintended wisdom and stupidity. It's like a Greek tragedy without actual actors, but in which the choir is the only one speaking.
They weep and are in turmoil as they witness how the president returns to his son's grave at night, only to take him out of his coffin again, and to hold the corpse in his arms, lamenting his predicament, and he does this not only once, but several nights in succession, as if he cannot depart from his son, as if he cannot depart from his guilt.
Saunders manages to turn this tragedy into a long lament on life and death, in a very moving way, using the fantasy aspect to great effect: it is as horrifying as it is captivating and inviting to reflect about our own human existence.
A majestic performance.
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