(Penguin Random House)If Heaven, according to Talking Heads, is the place where nothing ever happens, the Bardo, according to George Saunders, is as jam-packed and frantic as Costco on Black Friday. Vigil is a briefer and bumpier return visit back to the Bardo. Instead of the mythic grief of Lincoln, here we have the passing of one somewhat mundane, if contemptible, human being. George Saunders Re-Imagines A President’s Grief With ‘Lincoln In The Bardo’ The acclaimed short-story writer sets his first novel in the cemetery where 11-year-old Willie Lincoln was buried. Why ‘Vigil’ author George Saunders often revisits death in his work NPR’s Scott Detrow speaks with author George Saunders on his latest novel Vigil, and why he finds himself revisiting death in his work.