George Saunders on 'shock' of winning the Man Booker Prize

George Saunders was sitting in London's Guildhall at a dinner last Tuesday celebrating the 2017 Man Booker Prize. "It's a nerve fest," he said. "I'd picked up on a vibe that it wasn't going to go my way, and that was fine. We were having a lot of fun, so it was a big shock" when it was announced that his novel, "Lincoln in the Bardo," had won the prestigious award.

Saunders' decidedly unconventional novel follows President Abraham Lincoln into the graveyard where his 11-year-old son, Willie, has just been laid to rest. Elsewhere, the Civil War, not quite a year old, kills scores. And within the boundaries of the cemetery,