Two Formats, One Unusual Novel
Lincoln in the Bardo has 166 distinct narrator voices, and Saunders distinguishes every one of them in the text using typographic cues and attribution. I read the print version first and found it dazzling but occasionally difficult to track. The audio version, performed by over 160 readers, is a different experience entirely. It is not better or worse. It is genuinely another way of encountering the same novel, and I think it is worth trying both if the book interests you.
368Pages
2Formats Tried
Reading Lincoln in the Bardo
Impact
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Section
What to Know Before You Start This Novel
The novel is set over a single night in a Washington DC cemetery in 1862
Most narrators are ghosts who do not yet know they are dead
The audio version features over 160 distinct readers including recognizable voices
The print version rewards slow reading for the typographic choices throughout
If you loved the experimental energy, try either format. If you struggled with the print version, the audio may be the version that makes it click for you.