Reading Suggestions for You! – “Lincoln in the Bardo”
Recommended by Joshua Colby
6/7/2017
The novel boasts a host of characters, each with their own distinct vernacular, and each with their own story to tell -- stories that all come together to paint a picture of the precariousness of life during the civil war, as well as the tragedy of familial loss. There isn't a single main character, rather, it seems to me there is a chorus of voices, each equal in their presentation, each distinct in their delivery. The best way to describe the overall tone/voice of the novel is that characters' voices pop up like bubbles floating from the bottom of a pond -- there is a certain fluidity to the story, in this way, even though characters are often interrupted by one another. The way that voices pop up, the way they interrupt one another, is quite hilarious in some instances, but it also helps to develop a sense of eeriness, or haunting. READ MORE