From Booklist:  Short-form master Saunders’ debut novel grabs attention with audiobook audacity: a record-breaking cast of 166 voices, showcasing stars including Susan Sarandon and Rainn Wilson as well as expert audio narrators, notably Cassandra Campbell and Kirby Heyborne. Enter an alternate existence where the words of ghostly beings and factual quotes from Abraham Lincoln’s contemporaries eddy through the audible ether in a foggy miasma that conjures Oak Hill Cemetery, where Lincoln’s young son, Willie, has been newly interred in the mausoleum. Over a single evening in 1862, and through flashbacks augmented by passages providing historical context, listeners become enmeshed in the president’s sorrow as he enters the crypt to hold his boy’s body one last time.

Listeners are guided through the graveyard’s bardo (a Tibetan Buddhist post-death, pre-rebirth, indeterminate state) by Offerman as Hans Vollman, Saunders himself as Reverend Thomas, and David Sedaris as Roger Bevins: a trio of snarky, sardonic, sanctimonious spirits who remain tethered to the bardo in a state of bickering boredom. A choir of specters add their observations, from bawdy to mournful, while interspersed throughout are scores of short historical excerpts, each voiced by a different performer. The result is an auditory experience unlike any other, where the awareness of individual voices disappears while the carefully calibrated soundscape summons a metaphysical masterpiece. This is a tour de force of audiobook production, and a dazzling realization of Saunders’ unique authorial structure.

For more about this unique audiobook, check out the Booklist Reader’s series of Lincoln in the Bardo–themed posts, including Mary Burkey’s interview with Saunders and producer Kelly Gildea.

— Mary Burkey

From Booklist:  Short-form master Saunders’ debut novel grabs attention with audiobook audacity: a record-breaking cast of 166 voices, showcasing stars including Susan Sarandon and Rainn Wilson as well as expert audio narrators, notably Cassandra Campbell and Kirby Heyborne. Enter an alternate existence where the words of ghostly beings and factual quotes from Abraham Lincoln’s contemporaries eddy through the audible ether in a foggy miasma that conjures Oak Hill Cemetery, where Lincoln’s young son, Willie, has been newly interred in the mausoleum. Over a single evening in 1862, and through flashbacks augmented by passages providing historical context, listeners become enmeshed in the president’s sorrow as he enters the crypt to hold his boy’s body one last time.

Listeners are guided through the graveyard’s bardo (a Tibetan Buddhist post-death, pre-rebirth, indeterminate state) by Offerman as Hans Vollman, Saunders himself as Reverend Thomas, and David Sedaris as Roger Bevins: a trio of snarky, sardonic, sanctimonious spirits who remain tethered to the bardo in a state of bickering boredom. A choir of specters add their observations, from bawdy to mournful, while interspersed throughout are scores of short historical excerpts, each voiced by a different performer. The result is an auditory experience unlike any other, where the awareness of individual voices disappears while the carefully calibrated soundscape summons a metaphysical masterpiece. This is a tour de force of audiobook production, and a dazzling realization of Saunders’ unique authorial structure.

For more about this unique audiobook, check out the Booklist Reader’s series of Lincoln in the Bardo–themed posts, including Mary Burkey’s interview with Saunders and producer Kelly Gildea.

— Mary Burkey