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Vigil
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Overview
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A wise, playful, electric novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo, taking place at the bedside of an oil company CEO, in the twilight hours of his life, as he is ferried from this world into the next.
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 three hundred and forty-three 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 life, and the world is better for it. Isn't it?
Vigil transports us, careening, through the wild final evening of an epic, complicated life. Crowds of people and animals—worldly and otherworldly, alive and dead—arrive, clamoring for a reckoning. Birds swarm the dying man's room, a black calf grazes on the loveseat, a man from a distant drought-ravaged village materializes, two oil-business cronies from decades past show up with chilling plans for Boone's post-death future.
With the acuity 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.
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9780525509622
- ISBN-10: 0525509623
- Publisher: Random House
- Publish Date: January 2026
- Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.83 x 0.87 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.75 pounds
- Page Count: 192
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Right at the beginning of Vigil, the latest novel from the irreplaceable George Saunders, a spirit falls from heaven and crashes into the earth like a dud bomb. One might fear an onslaught of silliness, but thankfully, Vigil is one of the most moving books you’ll read all year. The spirit’s name is Jill “Doll” Blaine, and she died much too young. Now, Jill’s task is to comfort the dying, helping them review their lives before guiding them to the afterlife. This job was bestowed on her by a god or power we never see or hear from. Jill’s next client is K.J. Boone, an elderly man dying of cancer. An oil tycoon whose embrace of climate denial made him filthy rich while causing untold suffering around the world, K.J. is belligerent, dismissive and unrepentant even on the verge of the hereafter. Think Logan Roy with a Texas accent. Both the reader and Jill are tempted to despise him. But this is Saunders, with his famous ability to make even the gnarliest of people three-dimensional. Saunders lets us see K.J. as a child who grew up in poverty. We watch him brawl his way to the top, trampling whoever he needs to trample to get there. Some, who’ve gone on before, would like for K.J. to acknowledge his carelessness. Two of them are Mel G. and Mel R., former business partners whose spectral appearances are as hilarious as they are creepy. Now, consider Jill. We ache for the fact that she died just as her life was beginning. She’d just gotten married, she and her husband were thinking about starting a family. Her dreams have been gone for a long time—she died in 1976—and are gone forever. Jill will never be as consequential, for good or for ill, as the man in her care. But her task is important, and noble. With Vigil, Saunders lets us know that even the smallest person can change not only our world, but the world to come, too.
Shelf Life with George Saunders: Read about his bookstore habits and library memories.
Right at the beginning of Vigil, the latest novel from the irreplaceable George Saunders, a spirit falls from heaven and crashes into the earth like a dud bomb. One might fear an onslaught of silliness, but thankfully, Vigil is one of the most moving books you’ll read all year. The spirit’s name is Jill “Doll” Blaine, and she died much too young. Now, Jill’s task is to comfort the dying, helping them review their lives before guiding them to the afterlife. This job was bestowed on her by a god or power we never see or hear from. Jill’s next client is K.J. Boone, an elderly man dying of cancer. An oil tycoon whose embrace of climate denial made him filthy rich while causing untold suffering around the world, K.J. is belligerent, dismissive and unrepentant even on the verge of the hereafter. Think Logan Roy with a Texas accent. Both the reader and Jill are tempted to despise him. But this is Saunders, with his famous ability to make even the gnarliest of people three-dimensional. Saunders lets us see K.J. as a child who grew up in poverty. We watch him brawl his way to the top, trampling whoever he needs to trample to get there. Some, who’ve gone on before, would like for K.J. to acknowledge his carelessness. Two of them are Mel G. and Mel R., former business partners whose spectral appearances are as hilarious as they are creepy. Now, consider Jill. We ache for the fact that she died just as her life was beginning. She’d just gotten married, she and her husband were thinking about starting a family. Her dreams have been gone for a long time—she died in 1976—and are gone forever. Jill will never be as consequential, for good or for ill, as the man in her care. But her task is important, and noble. With Vigil, Saunders lets us know that even the smallest person can change not only our world, but the world to come, too.
Shelf Life with George Saunders: Read about his bookstore habits and library memories.