Vigil: A Novel by George Saunders

Not for the first time, Jill “Doll” Blaine finds herself hurtling toward earth, reconstituting as she falls, right down to her favorite black pumps. She plummets towards her newest charge, yet another soul she must usher into the afterlife, and lands headfirst in the circular drive of his ornate mansion.

She has performed this sacred duty 343 times since her own death. Her charges, as a rule, have been greatly comforted in their final moments. But this charge, she soon discovers, isn’t like the others. The powerful K. J. Boone will not be consoled, because he has nothing to regret. He lived a big, bold, epic life, and the world is better for it. Isn’t it?

Vigil transports us, careening, through the wild final evening of a complicated man. Visitors begin to arrive (worldly and otherworldly, alive and dead), clamoring for a reckoning. Birds swarm the dying man’s room; a black calf grazes on the love seat; a man from a distant, drought-ravaged village materializes; two oil-business cronies from decades past show up with chilling plans for Boone’s postdeath future.

With the wisdom, playfulness, and explosive imagination we’ve come to expect, George Saunders takes on the gravest issues of our time—the menace of corporate greed, the toll of capitalism, the environmental perils of progress—and, in the process, spins a tale that encompasses life and death, good and evil, and the thorny question of absolution.

REVIEWS

“Anyone who loves George Saunders’s writing can tell you about his wicked imagination: luminous, dark, wholly original, and quite frequently supernatural . . . The twin currents that run through these and all of his works, including his newest novel, Vigil, about a spirit tending to a dying oil executive, is large-heartedness paired with unsparing wit. Saunders is funny. Hilarious even.”—The Atlantic

“Vibrant, fiendishly clever . . . Vigil is leaner than “Lincoln in the Bardo,” but no less revelatory in its grasp of history and humanity, how and why our lives are shaped by politics that whorl around us . . . Saunders varies pointillist technique with staccato dialogue, slapstick humor, even touches of horror. It’s all thrilling on the page . . . Vigil is pure Saunders: the death of empathy, he insists, is greatly exaggerated. He pushes back, a burst of surprises and sudden grace.”—The Boston Globe

“As the winner of the Booker Prize, Saunders sets a high bar, and his latest easily clears it. Vigil explores the act of dying: what you regret, who you apologize to, and what you are proudest of. Saunders also imagines dying in an evocative, active way while also making time to explore capitalism, greed, and everything else you might regret in your last hours.”—Harper’s Bazaar

PRODUCT DETAILS
Paperback
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 979-8217197811
Pages: 192