Who Narrates The Multiple Voices In 'Lincoln In The Bardo'?
Just listened to the audiobook version of George Saunders' novel. The shifting ghost perspectives are incredible, but whose voices are reading each chapter?
In 'Lincoln in the Bardo,' the voices are a huge, shifting chorus of ghosts and spirits, but it's not voiced by distinct narrators in the traditional sense—the entire book is written as a series of dialogue-like snippets and quotes from historical sources, all seamlessly blended together. It can feel like being in a crowded, spectral room. For a more structured but equally haunting take on a loved one returning from beyond, 'My Dead Husband’s Very Much Alive' handles its central ghostly dilemma with a single, sharp point of view that really digs into the emotional fallout when the deceased shows up alive and well, creating a very different kind of personal haunting.
2026-08-04 03:18:31
41
Liam
Frequent Answerer
Electrician
Saunders throws convention out the window with 'Lincoln in the Bardo.' The ghosts do most of the talking—Vollman, Bevins, and the Reverend lead the charge, but dozens more chime in. Their dialogue reads like a play script, chaotic yet purposeful. Historical quotes pepper the text, some real, some fabricated, blurring lines between fact and imagination. Lincoln’s internal monologues are sparse but devastating. The structure mirrors grief: messy, nonlinear, and deafeningly loud.
2025-07-02 12:33:24
12
Uma
Frequent Answerer
UX Designer
The narration in 'Lincoln in the Bardo' is like a kaleidoscope—constantly shifting, dazzling, and disorienting. Ghosts dominate, but their stories collide with archival fragments, creating a mosaic of truth and fiction. Vollman’s earnestness, Bevins’ poetic despair, and the Reverend’s rigid piety form the emotional core, while peripheral spirits chime in with bawdy humor or tragic asides. Lincoln’s voice emerges sparingly, weighted with historical gravitas, yet intimate in his mourning. The technique mirrors the Bardo itself: a space where voices overlap, memories blur, and time fractures. Saunders’ genius lies in making this cacophony feel organic, each voice a thread in the tapestry of collective yearning.
2025-07-05 01:12:21
12
Alice
Ending Guesser
Journalist
The narration here is a wild ride. Ghosts argue, joke, and lament, with Vollman, Bevins, and the Reverend taking center stage. Their voices—sometimes overlapping—paint the Bardo as a place of chaos and camaraderie. Historical passages, real or not, add weight. Lincoln’s thoughts, though rare, cut deep. It’s less a story than an experience, a cacophony of lives interrupted and histories rewritten.
2025-07-05 19:56:54
5
Xavier
Reply Helper
Electrician
What makes 'Lincoln in the Bardo' unforgettable is its chorus of voices. The ghosts are the heart of it—Vollman, Bevins, and the Reverend—each trapped by their own regrets. Vollman babbles about his unfinished life; Bevins luxuriates in sensory details; the Reverend moralizes. Historical snippets interrupt, some genuine, others pure invention, challenging how we remember the past. Lincoln’s grief-stricken musings are the anchor, brief but shattering. The collective effect is like eavesdropping on a crowded, spectral confessional.
2025-07-06 01:58:59
14
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The Voices Inside My Head
Lee J Mavin
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Being a mute used to be simple before all the craziness started. I just can't talk and that's who I am. Mum has learned to accept that and I guess so have I. Everything was just fine in my high school in Shanghai.
I had finally made it to year twelve and even though I was in China, I was actually being treated as a human being despite my disability. Things were definitely not perfect but I would give anything to go back to that, like it was before. I heard my first voice that year, right at the beginning of year 12. I didn’t really have any real friends, but I was used to it and before the voices started, I was fine with that. But it all changed when I first heard them.
The voices inside their heads started then and my life was never the same. They weren't just thinking about school or they girls or guys they were into, no they were thinking about doing things, doing horrible things to each other and I was the only one that knew how messed up they really were.
My dad died in a car crash.
On the seventh day after his death, I hear him whisper in my ear, "Amara, save your brother. There are cracks in the old stone bridge at the village entrance... It will collapse... He will die."
I immediately call my brother, Asher Langford, and he takes a different route out of the village.
But that afternoon, the police report that a murder took place on that road. The victim is Asher.
My sister-in-law, Delia Winslow, and I bury him in tears.
On the seventh day after my brother's death, I hear my dad's voice again. "Amara, keep an eye on Jasper. Don't go to the back of the hill. The dead trees there attract lightning... There will be a thunderstorm in three days."
That night, Delia locks my nephew, Jasper Langford, inside the house. But three days later, Jasper falls from a window on the 12th floor.
Delia goes insane after losing her husband and son consecutively in such a short time.
Holding back my grief, I leave my own son, Billy Calloway, with my husband, Felix Calloway, and help Delia lay Jasper to rest.
On the seventh day after Jasper's death, I see my dad holding Billy's hand and looking back at me with a sorrowful expression.
He says, "Amara... There are spirits looking for substitutes in the reed marsh in the village. Take care of Billy. Don't go..."
Mia D’Lorne thought heartbreak would kill her but getting hit by a car did the job faster.
One second she’s running from the sound of her boyfriend and sister fornicating, the next she’s standing in front of an abandoned bus station in what looks like purgatory. The bus that picks her up looks like a prop in a horror movie and she’s introduced to the world of the Soul Recycle Program.
To exist, she has to compete in a twisted afterlife show where the dead fight their way through nightmare worlds for the amusement of unknown and unseen spectators. The rules are simple. Survive or disappear for good.
Mia is joined by two strangers who are just as broken as she is. Axel Rivers, who has been dead for almost a century, and Bree DeBois, a control freak paramedic with more guilt than she can carry. Together they try to survive the challenges of the game.
As the trio do their best to keep from being erased, they begin to realize the Game is more personal than they imagined.
As long as I can remember, I've been plagued by strange dreams. He comes to me when I sleep, calling out to me with such love. His face is so familiar yet strange to my eyes. Every dream was just that, a dream, until a family heirloom was handed down to me.
With the book now open, the man I yearned to see in my sleep... is now real.
Thrown back into the 1800's I find myself having to solve the mystery behind the screams that haunted me, and the loving touch from my dreams.
How can I save the love that calls to me when my mind is torn between right and wrong? Or will the past make its way to my present world before I can stop it?
"This realm is your only chance of coming back to life in the mortal world, and if you attract those consequences, take note that you will die.”
“Death?” I ask, mostly to myself. And to the voice, “What do you mean by 'I’m on my way to death'?”
~~~
Nova was having a bad day, and all she wanted was for the day to end already. But the universe seemed to have misunderstood her wish, because not only did her day not end, but she met with an accident that left her in a coma.
As if that wasn't bad enough, she became trapped in a dimension between life and death, where she had to face a series of trials that would determine if she wakes... or fades from existence.
Enter Zephyr, the spirit assigned to guide her to the light – her recovery.
The spirit who never tried to disguise his want for her failure.
The spirit she should've never fallen in love with.
But in a world where survival is determined by the number of challenges a soul can conquer, the heart still found its way around love.
With her complicated feelings in an already complicated world, Nova must decide what she's truly fighting for – her life, or the one being who's capable of ending it.
***
In a short time, the remaining one hundred and twelve souls are pushed out. When we’re complete and standing, a voice – different from on the bus – greets us.
“Welcome, Souls, to the survival games.”
The core relationship between Willie and his father is told almost entirely through third-party observation and reported speech. We never get direct access to Lincoln's mind, only how the ghosts interpret his actions and murmurs. We see Willie through the ghosts' eyes. This indirect method makes their bond more powerful. It's like the shyest, most precious thing in the narrative, too vulnerable to be stated directly, so it's reflected in the worried, admiring chatter of the spirits around them.
My take is simpler: the book is about love as a force that transcends even death. The historical setting provides the highest possible stakes—a nation at war, a president in crisis—to test that idea. Is Lincoln’s love for his son stronger than his duty to the living? The bardo is the arena for that conflict. The historical facts set up the dilemma; the fiction explores it. So the ‘accuracy’ of the exploration is measured in emotional truth, not chronological detail.
'Lincoln in the Bardo' breaks traditional storytelling rules in ways that make it stand out as experimental fiction. The novel’s structure is a wild mix of historical accounts, ghostly monologues, and fragmented narratives, creating a collage of voices rather than a linear plot. The ghosts in the bardo—a Tibetan term for the transitional state between death and rebirth—narrate their stories in rapid-fire bursts, often contradicting each other, which forces the reader to piece together reality.
Another experimental aspect is how Saunders blends real historical sources with fictional elements. Excerpts from (often fabricated) historical documents are spliced into the ghost dialogues, blurring the line between fact and imagination. The prose itself shifts between poetic, chaotic, and deeply emotional, refusing to settle into a single style. This unpredictability mirrors the uncertainty of the bardo, where the dead cling to their unfinished lives. The book’s refusal to conform to genre or form makes it a bold experiment in storytelling.
The handling of the Reverend Everly Thomas character is a great example. His voice often carries a tone of desperate, rationalizing authority trying to make sense of the nonsense around him. In the audiobook, you can hear the cracks in that authority—the fear, the doubt. On the page, he might just seem like a stuffy preacher. The vocal performance adds a tragic dimension, showing a man clinging to doctrine in the face of the unimaginable. This happens with many characters: the voice acting reveals their internal contradictions and humanity in immediate, subtle ways that text alone can only imply. It's characterization through sound.
'Lincoln in the Bardo' is a literary masterpiece that scooped up some of the most prestigious awards in the book world. It won the Man Booker Prize in 2017, which is a huge deal—it’s like the Oscars for novels. The book also snagged the Goodreads Choice Award for Historical Fiction that same year, proving readers adored it just as much as critics.
What makes these wins special is how the novel blends historical depth with surreal storytelling. The Man Booker win especially highlighted its innovative structure, mixing ghostly voices with Abraham Lincoln’s grief. The awards cemented George Saunders’ reputation as a writer who can bend genres and emotions in unforgettable ways.