Lincoln in the Bardo

The ghosts watch dejectedly as Lincoln returns Willie’s body to his coffin and locks up the tomb.

Willie asks the ghosts if his father is gone. He has finally been helped out of the tendrils, but the moment he moves, new vines form around him.

Hans and Roger ask the Revered to help them shift Lincoln’s mind. The Reverend remembers helping them affect the minds of the engaged couple a while back. The man returned to the cemetery a few years later to visit the site where he and his wife had had sex the day they thought they would break up. The ghosts had kept them together but had not solved their problems; eventually the wife died by suicide. The Reverend promised himself to never interfere like that again, but this time is different.

Hans, Roger, and the Reverend enter Lincoln’s body. Other ghosts, emboldened, do the same. In an instant, several different spirits shift into Lincoln and intertwine with one another. Hopeful that hundreds of voices might reach Lincoln, they all yell at him to stop. The ghosts feel a new sense of confidence in working together. Because they are all intertwined, they see one another’s past lives clearly, building empathy between them. When Hans and Roger look at one another, they see each other as their former human selves, not their warped spirit selves. All the spirits turn into happier versions of themselves. Even Litzie has regained the ability to speak, and she thanks Mrs. Hodge for helping her all this time.

Despite feeling joy from their transformations, the spirits are frustrated that not only has Lincoln not stopped, but he has started walking faster.

Roger calls for the Bachelors to find more assistance. The Bachelors’ leader, Stanley Lippert, refuses to help. The Bachelors decide to stick to what they do best: hang out and do silly things. They gallivant away. The ghosts abandon Lincoln’s body, giving up one by one. Roger, Hans, and the Reverend go back to check on Willie. The Reverend is disappointed that intermingling with other spirits has provided him with truths he had forgotten from his past but not with the reason for his damnation.

New voices inside the tomb offer to help Willie back up to the roof so he can at least be stuck outside with a view. These voices are unfamiliar, and attached to no physical spirit manifestations—they are the voices of the entwining vines. The voices confess they did horrible things while alive, such as murder or pedophilia. As each voice confesses their crime, a face appears, wretched and full of guilt. This is the strangest thing Roger and Hans have ever seen in the bardo. The Reverend asks the faces if they are in hell, but if so, they are in a type of hell he is unfamiliar with. He wonders what he could have done to equate him with these criminals. Roger asks the voices why children have different rules in the bardo and begs them to stop entwining him. The voices mock Roger’s desire for fairness. As the voices grow frustrated, the Reverend asks them to allow Willie go to the roof. When the vines release, the Reverend picks Willie up as though to go up to the roof, but instead, he runs away with Willie in his arms.

The voices chase after the Reverend, Willie, Hans, and Roger in the form of an aggressive blur. They trip the Reverend as he runs to the chapel. The demonic spirits trap the Reverend and Willie, and the Reverend finally accepts that he has no choice but to face his judgment. The matterlightblooming phenomenon occurs, and the Reverend disappears.

Without the Reverend, the vine trap has an empty space large enough for Hans and Roger to retrieve Willie. They lift Willie up and enter the chapel, with the demonic spirits in hot pursuit. In the chapel, they see Abraham Lincoln sitting down in a pew.

The cemetery groundskeeper’s report records that President Lincoln stopped at the chapel to pray and sent Manders back to his hut with the lantern.

Ghosts gather in the chapel to bear witness. Hans encourages Willie to go toward his father. Willie first sits on his father lap as he used to do when alive, and then enters his father’s body.

Willie asks his father what he should do. He hears his father remembering the moment he found Willie coming down with a fever. The fever was a symptom of typhoid, which slowly ravaged Willie’s body and mind. Historical records note Lincoln’s deep capacity for sympathy. When Willie died, Lincoln could do nothing but stand by and watch.

Willie looks confused and says that he doesn’t understand. Hans orders him to come out of Lincoln’s body.

Historical records note that Willie was embalmed with the Sagnet process, which helps a corpse look more natural. President Lincoln accidentally walked into the embalming process too early.

Hundreds of people gathered in the streets of Washington, DC, to watch Willie’s funeral procession pass by. Witnesses wrote that President Lincoln looked older at the funeral, and walked as though in disbelief at the situation. When one friend approached Lincoln to comfort him, Lincoln told him with incredulity that his son was dead.

Willie looks around at the ghosts. He wants to tell them something. Some ghosts try to leave, afraid of the revelation, and Hans tells him to stop talking, but Willie exclaims that they are all dead. Immediately, the matterlightblooming phenomenon takes away many souls. Willie tells the rest that his father said it—and why would his father lie? Roger considers this and realizes that there is no good reason for Lincoln to lie about Willie’s death. Roger did once entertain the idea that he could be dead, but Hans reminded him that they couldn’t be dead since they could still move around, talk, and think. Willie jumps with joy and says there’s no reason to stay. More souls depart. Willie disappears with the matterlightblooming phenomenon.

Willie celebrates his new-found freedom. He can play all he wants, eat cake all he wants, and swing about dangerously on furniture. He relinquishes his former self and embraces the beauty of his freedom.

Abraham Lincoln abruptly rises from the pew and leaves the chapel. Hans and Roger read Lincoln’s thoughts. Lincoln realizes that everyone feels sorrow. His sorrow is not unique, and the only thing to do is make himself useful to the sorrowing world . All people suffer, which means that humans must look at one another through the lens of mutual suffering instead of through the lens of our differences. Lincoln resolves to go through with the war, no matter what the human cost. Winning the war, he reasons, will end more suffering: Sometimes, suffering is necessary to end other types of suffering. Lincoln recalls his humble childhood: The son of a poor white man rose to the highest position of power, while slave masters keep other men in chains.

The Black ghosts did not enter the chapel, afraid of how white people act when Black people share a church with them. Mrs. Francis Hodge reads Lincoln’s mind as he exits the chapel and walks through her. His thoughts are on bloodshed.

Lincoln passes through Thomas Havens, who feels a kinship to the president. Thomas stays in Lincoln’s body, eager to get to know him and be known in return. He feels Lincoln’s sadness and shares the sadness of his own people. He thinks hard about Elson, Mrs. Hodge, Litzie, and all the other enslaved people he knew. He asks Lincoln for the opportunity to show everyone what Black people are truly capable of.

Elson and Litzie meet up with the other Black ghosts. They heard Willie’s revelation and explain to everyone that all the ghosts are dead. Mrs. Francis Hodge realizes how trivial her time in the bardo has been. She looks to Litzie to ask what she wants to do. Litzie will do whatever Mrs. Francis Hodge wants. Mrs. Hodge asks Elson if he’ll leave too, but he resolves to stay until he gets revenge.

In a letter to her brother, Isabelle Perkins describes watching President Lincoln leave the cemetery through the windows of her home. She notes that he looks sad, and she feels sad for him. She asks her brother to come visit her, for she feels lonely these days.

Manders notices the sick girl who lives across the street (i.e., Isabelle) watching the president exit the cemetery. Manders calls out to her to shut her window lest she get worse, and they chat about Willie’s sad ending. They pray and bid each other goodnight.

Meanwhile, in the chapel, the matterlightblooming phenomenon continues, with spirits departing every second. Elson enters the chapel, igniting fury in the racist Lieutenant Cecil Stone. Stone charges Elson and they fight until a sobbing Elson bashes the Lieutenant’s head in with a rock. The Lieutenant recovers immediately and asks Elson how a creature with no ability to feel could be weeping. Roger and Hans leave them to their eternal battle.

Hans and Roger run to their graves, shaken, passing Eddie and Betsy Barron. Betsy tells Eddie that they’re dead, and that she loves him. The matterlightblooming phenomenon takes them away.

Roger remembers the day he killed himself as his spiritual form adapts to the matterlightblooming phenomenon. He also suddenly remembers the day a year ago when Hans’s widow visited the cemetery. She came to thank Hans for his kindness, which eventually allowed her to meet the love of her life—her new husband. In turn, Hans explains to Roger that Roger slit his wrists and killed himself. Hans’s form starts to change with the matterlightblooming.

Roger and Hans decide to depart together. Each shifts into the form of a man he could have been. Roger becomes a young sailor exploring the world with a Brazilian engineer who teaches him about homosexual love and pleasure. Hans becomes an old, happy, celibate man driving a car. But when something still keeps them in the bardo, they recall Elise and walk to the iron fence.

Hans and Roger apologize to Elise for failing to help her. Elise begins to shape-shift, yelling at them to leave her alone. After Hans apologizes to her for not comforting her as she became trapped in the fence, he disappears in the matterlightblooming. Elise begs Roger to set her free, but before he can try, the matterlightblooming takes him too. As he leaves, he bears witness to the mundane but beautiful world.

Spirits engaged in group sex are distracted by the matterlightblooming phenomenon. They stop their orgy to see what’s going on and watch Roger disappear. Then they and the few other spirits who remain in the cemetery return to their graves, excited to for the next night and its gift of more time. Among these are the Bachelors, who hope that “until we are ended, ‘never’ may not be truly said. And love may yet be ours” (341).

Manders tours the cemetery thinking about how young Willie was when he died. He prays that he’ll die before his own children but then considers that if he dies first, he won’t be able to help them through their own deaths. He realizes that mortality is quite a bind and waits for the sun to rise and wash away his morbid thoughts.

Thomas Havens continues to inhabit Lincoln’s body. They ride away from the cemetery and Lincoln thinks of his living son, Tad. Lincoln longs for death, but there’s nothing either he or Thomas can do but keep riding forward.