Hey there, I'm Jason Gots and you're listening to Think Again, a Big Think podcast.

Started in 2008, Big Think is a kind of online think tank of big ideas from some of the most creative thinkers on the planet.

On the podcast, we revisit these ideas in new and different ways.

Our producers surprise me and my guests with short interview clips from Big Things

Archives, ideas that we didn't necessarily come here expecting to discuss.

I'm very, very happy to be here today with the writer George Saunders.

His first novel, after many acclaimed collections of short stories,

including the New York Times dressseller 10th of December, is called Lincoln in the Bardo, a kind of play for voices about the death and afterlife of Abraham Lincoln's son, Willie, who died at age 10.

It's one of the strangest, wisest, most wonderful books I've ever had the privilege and pleasure of reading.

Welcome to think again, George.

It's good to be here, Jason. Thanks for having me.

It's so good to have you here.

There are so many places we could start, but I guess let's give people sort of an idea.

I mean, this is fundamentally the story of the death of a child.

That's kind of the initial the initial impact of it.

Yeah.

You know, I have a nine-year-old son, so like very early on that hit me full force.

But, you know, what, what led you to that subject?

Yeah.

Well, for me, you know, it was just this inciting image that we were in D.C. many years ago, and somebody pointed out the crypt where he was buried. And they said that in the papers at the time, they'd been reported that Lincoln had been so grief-stricken that he went in there and held the body. So at that time, I was a father of young kids also. So two things. One, it hit me hard, and two, I pushed it away. Like, yeah.

And partly because it just made me squeamish

and I feel superstitious about it.

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