Lincoln in the Bardo

George Saunders, the best-known living story writer south of Alice Munro, has, finally, published a novel! And it's a good one, concerning the death of Abraham Lincoln's son Willie and Lincoln's visits to his tomb, where unbeknownst, he is surrounded by dozens of souls held in limbo between the world of the living and the next one. The many voices of the graveyard, along with the rich language of the American 19th century, give plenty of room for Saunders's characteristically grotesque and hilarious invention, but the subject, and Lincoln's sad gravity, brings out the great tenderness that is always present alongside the cruelty in his stories. The book has a real, mournful beauty.