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Vigil
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 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.
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 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.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 27, 2026
1223 people are currently reading
52745 people want to read
About the author
George Saunders
107 books10.7k followersGeorge Saunders was born December 2, 1958 and raised on the south side of Chicago. In 1981 he received a B.S. in Geophysical Engineering from Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. He worked at Radian International, an environmental engineering firm in Rochester, NY as a technical writer and geophysical engineer from 1989 to 1996. He has also worked in Sumatra on an oil exploration geophysics crew, as a doorman in Beverly Hills, a roofer in Chicago, a convenience store clerk, a guitarist in a Texas country-and-western band, and a knuckle-puller in a West Texas slaughterhouse.
After reading in People magazine about the Master's program at Syracuse University, he applied. Mr. Saunders received an MA with an emphasis in creative writing in 1988. His thesis advisor was Doug Unger.
He has been an Assistant Professor, Syracuse University Creative Writing Program since 1997. He has also been a Visiting Writer at Vermont Studio Center, University of Georgia MayMester Program, University of Denver, University of Texas at Austin, St. Petersburg Literary Seminar (St. Petersburg, Russia, Summer 2000), Brown University, Dickinson College, Hobart & William Smith Colleges.
He conducted a Guest Workshop at the Eastman School of Music, Fall 1995, and was an Adjunct Professor at Saint John Fisher College, Rochester, New York, 1990-1995; and Adjunct Professor at Siena College, Loudonville, New York in Fall 1989.
He is married and has two children.
His favorite charity is a project to educate Tibetan refugee children in Nepal. Information on this can be found at http://www.tibetan-buddhist.org/index...
After reading in People magazine about the Master's program at Syracuse University, he applied. Mr. Saunders received an MA with an emphasis in creative writing in 1988. His thesis advisor was Doug Unger.
He has been an Assistant Professor, Syracuse University Creative Writing Program since 1997. He has also been a Visiting Writer at Vermont Studio Center, University of Georgia MayMester Program, University of Denver, University of Texas at Austin, St. Petersburg Literary Seminar (St. Petersburg, Russia, Summer 2000), Brown University, Dickinson College, Hobart & William Smith Colleges.
He conducted a Guest Workshop at the Eastman School of Music, Fall 1995, and was an Adjunct Professor at Saint John Fisher College, Rochester, New York, 1990-1995; and Adjunct Professor at Siena College, Loudonville, New York in Fall 1989.
He is married and has two children.
His favorite charity is a project to educate Tibetan refugee children in Nepal. Information on this can be found at http://www.tibetan-buddhist.org/index...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 443 reviews
February 3, 2026
Vigil begins enigmatically… Out of the blue…
This mysterious presence isn’t a female angel of death… Actually she is an afterlife spirit sent to soothe a dying man… But there also is a male spirit of this kind and he pursues his own purpose…
To my great chagrin the story is short in coherence and rich in discrepancy… Spirits come and go… Preposterous and ludicrous… It goes on like a bad séance… And the dying man is a nefarious type…
If the afterlife is so inane, who will need it then?
What a lovely home I found myself plummeting toward, acquiring, as I fell, arms, hands, legs, feet, all of which, as usual, became more substantial with each passing second.
Below: a fountain.
At the center of the fountain: a gold-plated statue.
Of a dog.
This mysterious presence isn’t a female angel of death… Actually she is an afterlife spirit sent to soothe a dying man… But there also is a male spirit of this kind and he pursues his own purpose…
You are here to “comfort,” him, oui? he said.
Yes, I said.
To comfort one who remains willfully ignorant of what he has done is to provide no comfort at all, he said. If you truly wish to comfort him, bring him to admit his sin, then repent of it.
To my great chagrin the story is short in coherence and rich in discrepancy… Spirits come and go… Preposterous and ludicrous… It goes on like a bad séance… And the dying man is a nefarious type…
Forward stepped my grandmother, in the faded green housedress she’d worn pretty much constantly there at the end.
Grandma Gust, we’d called her. Because of her late-life farting.
If the afterlife is so inane, who will need it then?
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Well, we don't have to discuss whether Saunders can write - of course he can - but this cutesy and simplistic tale reaches Bertolt Brecht levels of pedagogical impetus paired with Bewilderment heights of righteous undercomplexity. The main narrative idea is almost identical with Lincoln in the Bardo: Once more, we encounter souls caught in the liminal state between death and the afterlife, but in "Vigil", the center is not a deceased US President, but Ebenezer Scrooge, ähem, K. J. Boone, an oil magnate refusing to repent for his sins against the environment. In his dying hours, he becomes the charge of Jill "Doll" Blaine, a ghost in the bardo who is elevated to accompany souls in the process of passing.
So yes, this is A Christmas Carol minus the Christmas part, with Boone being haunted by the people he has wronged and by his family, alive and dead. Some of his experiences are visions in his mind, some events relate to the living at his deathbed and others to ghosts like Jill visiting him. As readers, we are trapped in Jill's perspective, who can merge with the living and the death to read their minds and feel their emotions. While Boone refuses to acknowledge and take responsibility for his lies and the harm he has done, Jill has trouble letting go of her former, living self, and, in a sub-plotline, has been struggling with her losses for almost fifty years while comforting dying souls. A third recurring scene is that of a wedding taking place nearby Boone's deathbed.
I was slightly aggravated by the depiction of Boone, the 87-year-old white man who has lived it up to the detriment of the weak and those coming after him: He is just not an interesting villain, as even his attempts to justify his misdeeds are lame and angry - not that Saunders is wrong here, I've met plenty of people in that vein (although not that rich and powerful), but that's exactly why this reader was wondering what's new here. To me, Jill was more captivating: I know that Saunders is a Buddhist, but in Christianity, archangel Michael (and certainly not a woman!) accompanies the souls of the dead to the otherworld, and according to the Book of Enoch, some angels are dispatched to earth to watch over human beings (hello, Wim Wenders' Der Himmel über Berlin). Jill repeats again and again though that people are "inevitable occurrences", ruled by their destinies, which is not a very Christian or Buddhist standpoint, on the contrary, and that opens doors for philosophical musings.
There are implied questions of nature against nurture here, but they are not fully developed: While Boone needs to step up to his past, Jill needs to let it go. What responsibility do they carry? Plus there are minor characters that would allow to draw readers in: Boone's daughter has profited from her father's grift, but she is also right when she says that we all do when we drive cars etc. Is the difference between Boone and us only one of degree, not a fundamental one? There is so much more in here, but the writing shows a tendency to include less interesting side quests instead of going deeper.
This didn't win me over, although I still love Saunders.
So yes, this is A Christmas Carol minus the Christmas part, with Boone being haunted by the people he has wronged and by his family, alive and dead. Some of his experiences are visions in his mind, some events relate to the living at his deathbed and others to ghosts like Jill visiting him. As readers, we are trapped in Jill's perspective, who can merge with the living and the death to read their minds and feel their emotions. While Boone refuses to acknowledge and take responsibility for his lies and the harm he has done, Jill has trouble letting go of her former, living self, and, in a sub-plotline, has been struggling with her losses for almost fifty years while comforting dying souls. A third recurring scene is that of a wedding taking place nearby Boone's deathbed.
I was slightly aggravated by the depiction of Boone, the 87-year-old white man who has lived it up to the detriment of the weak and those coming after him: He is just not an interesting villain, as even his attempts to justify his misdeeds are lame and angry - not that Saunders is wrong here, I've met plenty of people in that vein (although not that rich and powerful), but that's exactly why this reader was wondering what's new here. To me, Jill was more captivating: I know that Saunders is a Buddhist, but in Christianity, archangel Michael (and certainly not a woman!) accompanies the souls of the dead to the otherworld, and according to the Book of Enoch, some angels are dispatched to earth to watch over human beings (hello, Wim Wenders' Der Himmel über Berlin). Jill repeats again and again though that people are "inevitable occurrences", ruled by their destinies, which is not a very Christian or Buddhist standpoint, on the contrary, and that opens doors for philosophical musings.
There are implied questions of nature against nurture here, but they are not fully developed: While Boone needs to step up to his past, Jill needs to let it go. What responsibility do they carry? Plus there are minor characters that would allow to draw readers in: Boone's daughter has profited from her father's grift, but she is also right when she says that we all do when we drive cars etc. Is the difference between Boone and us only one of degree, not a fundamental one? There is so much more in here, but the writing shows a tendency to include less interesting side quests instead of going deeper.
This didn't win me over, although I still love Saunders.
Read
February 2, 2026I deleted a negative review because of my extreme goodwill toward the author of Lincoln in the Bardo but I can’t delete the feeling that this book didn’t work for me. See how delicately I have put it. I haven’t written: "this book is throughly slap-dash and saccharin.” I'm not willing to criticize the master.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
3.5, rounded up.
I have been a longtime Saunders superfan, and celebrated Lincoln in the Bardo as one of the great American noves of the 21st century. And I'd be the first to acknowledge that I am holding him to an exceptionally high standard, given his tremendous gifts as a postmodern prophet and secular bodhisattva. So this short novel is my second consecutive disappointment with Saunders, after his last short-story collection, Liberation Day, which felt like a creative standstill, with occasional lapses into gluey sentimentality (review).
To my mind, Vigil felt like a repeat performance of Lincoln, recycling the same themes to lesser effect. Here, we revisit the Bardo-verse, where dead souls linger in limbo before they settle their karmic debts and abandon their mortal attachments. Since her untimely death at the hands of a car-bomber in 1970s Indiana, an attachment she hasn't quite managed to shed herself, Jill ("Doll") Blaine has been visiting people on the brink of dying, feeling their pain and reading their thoughts as she helps them to navigate the crossing into the afterlife. Her latest charge is 87-year-old Texas petroleum billionaire T.J. Boone, one of the most heinous global warming deniers, who adamantly refuses to take any measure of personal responsibility for global ecological collapse. Even a writer as talented and empathic as Saunders can't humanize this monster, and render him worthy of even a tiny shred of compassion.
I've never found Saunders to be preachy or pedantic before, but here he's scoring the easiest of moral points without any subtlety, and his usual razor-sharp wit frequently degrades into cheap parody. I always relish reading Saunders on a sentence-to-sentence level, and there are plenty of whacked-out riffs on the utter absurdity of late-stage capitalism amongst the white corporate overclass in the upscale suburbs of Dallas, and I found the last third of the novel surprisingly moving. Still, this isn't what he'll be remembered for.
Thanks to Netgalley and Random House for an advance copy, in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
I have been a longtime Saunders superfan, and celebrated Lincoln in the Bardo as one of the great American noves of the 21st century. And I'd be the first to acknowledge that I am holding him to an exceptionally high standard, given his tremendous gifts as a postmodern prophet and secular bodhisattva. So this short novel is my second consecutive disappointment with Saunders, after his last short-story collection, Liberation Day, which felt like a creative standstill, with occasional lapses into gluey sentimentality (review).
To my mind, Vigil felt like a repeat performance of Lincoln, recycling the same themes to lesser effect. Here, we revisit the Bardo-verse, where dead souls linger in limbo before they settle their karmic debts and abandon their mortal attachments. Since her untimely death at the hands of a car-bomber in 1970s Indiana, an attachment she hasn't quite managed to shed herself, Jill ("Doll") Blaine has been visiting people on the brink of dying, feeling their pain and reading their thoughts as she helps them to navigate the crossing into the afterlife. Her latest charge is 87-year-old Texas petroleum billionaire T.J. Boone, one of the most heinous global warming deniers, who adamantly refuses to take any measure of personal responsibility for global ecological collapse. Even a writer as talented and empathic as Saunders can't humanize this monster, and render him worthy of even a tiny shred of compassion.
I've never found Saunders to be preachy or pedantic before, but here he's scoring the easiest of moral points without any subtlety, and his usual razor-sharp wit frequently degrades into cheap parody. I always relish reading Saunders on a sentence-to-sentence level, and there are plenty of whacked-out riffs on the utter absurdity of late-stage capitalism amongst the white corporate overclass in the upscale suburbs of Dallas, and I found the last third of the novel surprisingly moving. Still, this isn't what he'll be remembered for.
Thanks to Netgalley and Random House for an advance copy, in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
September 19, 2025
The first 100 pages were a 3 but the last 70 were a 5. Never was the writing lacking anything, but the story really developed into what Saunders really shines at, an artistic pull at morality, as well as our heartstrings
January 26, 2026
I struggled with this book bc I liked the writing and style and humor and mystical elements but didn’t always know what was going on. I felt a little too dumb for the book. I know Saunders was doing stuff but I couldn’t always grasp it. It feels like a book I’d need to reread to really feel like I got it. But I was entertained and intrigued and can see folks liking it a lot.
I reread this and liked it more. I needed to slow down with it. The rhythm and punctuation really popped for me this time.
I reread this and liked it more. I needed to slow down with it. The rhythm and punctuation really popped for me this time.
January 30, 2026
Has George really given absolution to those that willfully preach ignorance, environmental destruction, and loss of life for corporate profit, personal power and aggrandizement? Making excuses that no one can help being who they were "meant" to be, even when we know the choices we make are wrong, mean or harmful? The ambivalence of the message is hard to stomach. But maybe what we need for reconciliation of This Great Divide tearing us apart? I don't know, but I don't want to believe it. Isn't Justice a thing?
Well constructed story, very engaging. Ambivalence about the morality at the center.
3 1/2 stars
Well constructed story, very engaging. Ambivalence about the morality at the center.
3 1/2 stars
November 30, 2025
I liked Vigil, but didn't love it. Perhaps that's because I wanted another Lincoln in the Bardo and Vigil isn't Lincoln in the Bardo. Saunders is a capable and imaginative writer bringing readers new ideas and styles. He's not a recycler of prose.
Vigil asks a question that needs asking at the moment: how will we?/can we?/should we? make peace with our actions that have harmed others? And in the case of Vigil, that harm is significant: readers sit alongside a fossil fuel titan who is on his deathbed—who has endless justifications, endless excuses, endless moral alibis, if you will.
There's a lot to chew on and, as in Lincoln in the Bardo, Saunders gives us a complex, thought-provoking set of afterworlds—afterworlds which we see though multiple sets of eyes and not just our industrial titan's. For me, this really was a book of thought, and I'm still sitting with it several days after finishing it considering its weft and its warp.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.
Vigil asks a question that needs asking at the moment: how will we?/can we?/should we? make peace with our actions that have harmed others? And in the case of Vigil, that harm is significant: readers sit alongside a fossil fuel titan who is on his deathbed—who has endless justifications, endless excuses, endless moral alibis, if you will.
There's a lot to chew on and, as in Lincoln in the Bardo, Saunders gives us a complex, thought-provoking set of afterworlds—afterworlds which we see though multiple sets of eyes and not just our industrial titan's. For me, this really was a book of thought, and I'm still sitting with it several days after finishing it considering its weft and its warp.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.
October 18, 2025
ARC for review. To be published January 27, 2026.
3 stars
In this lesser work from Saunders K. J. Boone, an oil company C.E.O. is dying. Actually breathing his last breaths. Jill “Doll” Blaine, dead since the Bicentennial, who helps people transition, is at his home to help him cross over.
Obviously, based on his occupation, Boone doesn’t have the world’s greatest history and some of Jill’s ilk want him to pay for the bad things he did during his life….and there were a lot of them, not the least of which was his knowing denial of climate change. The book explores the notion of evil and inevitability.
So, yeah, the feel good book of the year. The topic seems made for Saunders but is far too large to adequately cover in a book so short. It was fine, though.
3 stars
In this lesser work from Saunders K. J. Boone, an oil company C.E.O. is dying. Actually breathing his last breaths. Jill “Doll” Blaine, dead since the Bicentennial, who helps people transition, is at his home to help him cross over.
Obviously, based on his occupation, Boone doesn’t have the world’s greatest history and some of Jill’s ilk want him to pay for the bad things he did during his life….and there were a lot of them, not the least of which was his knowing denial of climate change. The book explores the notion of evil and inevitability.
So, yeah, the feel good book of the year. The topic seems made for Saunders but is far too large to adequately cover in a book so short. It was fine, though.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
George Saunders is a luminary in the world of literary fiction. His latest novel, Vigil, tells the story of Jill Blaine, also called “Doll,” a formerly alive person who’s now tasked with escorting dying souls on Earth to their next destination.
My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the review copy. This book will be available to the public January 27, 2026.
Ms. Blaine, our protagonist, has been tapped hundreds of times to transition the dying to their next stop, but this time it’s different. Others needed to be comforted and consoled; KJ Boone, however, does not. He’s an oil company executive that has oh, so much for which to atone, but he doesn’t see it that way. Boone has more self-esteem, more rampant self-regard, than almost anyone else on the planet. So, in one sense, Blaine isn’t really needed, and yet she is.
Saunders writes some of the most whimsical prose I’ve read anywhere. This novel isn’t getting as much love from some other reviewers, and when I read what they have to say, a bit puzzled by the lukewarm responses, I see why. Saunders has written other books, in particular, two other massively successful novels, Lincoln in the Bardo and Tenth of December. To reviewers that read and loved either of these, that is the standard to which he will forever be held. I have no such outsized yardstick by which to measure this writer. Both of those books are in my queue, but I haven’t read a word of either one yet, so I measure his novels by the same yardstick as I use for every other author, and frankly, that seems fairer to me.
Therefore, when Jill Blaine plummets to Earth headfirst and sinks nearly to her waist in the dirt, feet sticking up, then has to pull herself back out, I read it and laugh like hell.
I won’t give any of the plot away; this is a short book, after all, and you deserve to be surprised by everything that takes place inside it. However, in addition to its original and vast humor, the story examines some philosophical questions. What do we owe the world and its people? What is chosen, and what is inevitable? Humor is a great way to explore these issues, because we are confronted with them while we’re in a relaxed state; we don’t become defensive before a question is even asked.
Highly recommended to those that love fantasy and philosophy and can use a good, hearty laugh.
My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the review copy. This book will be available to the public January 27, 2026.
Ms. Blaine, our protagonist, has been tapped hundreds of times to transition the dying to their next stop, but this time it’s different. Others needed to be comforted and consoled; KJ Boone, however, does not. He’s an oil company executive that has oh, so much for which to atone, but he doesn’t see it that way. Boone has more self-esteem, more rampant self-regard, than almost anyone else on the planet. So, in one sense, Blaine isn’t really needed, and yet she is.
Saunders writes some of the most whimsical prose I’ve read anywhere. This novel isn’t getting as much love from some other reviewers, and when I read what they have to say, a bit puzzled by the lukewarm responses, I see why. Saunders has written other books, in particular, two other massively successful novels, Lincoln in the Bardo and Tenth of December. To reviewers that read and loved either of these, that is the standard to which he will forever be held. I have no such outsized yardstick by which to measure this writer. Both of those books are in my queue, but I haven’t read a word of either one yet, so I measure his novels by the same yardstick as I use for every other author, and frankly, that seems fairer to me.
Therefore, when Jill Blaine plummets to Earth headfirst and sinks nearly to her waist in the dirt, feet sticking up, then has to pull herself back out, I read it and laugh like hell.
I won’t give any of the plot away; this is a short book, after all, and you deserve to be surprised by everything that takes place inside it. However, in addition to its original and vast humor, the story examines some philosophical questions. What do we owe the world and its people? What is chosen, and what is inevitable? Humor is a great way to explore these issues, because we are confronted with them while we’re in a relaxed state; we don’t become defensive before a question is even asked.
Highly recommended to those that love fantasy and philosophy and can use a good, hearty laugh.
January 30, 2026
When I heard Saunders was dragging us back into the afterlife I was FULLY prepared to have my brain scrambled and my soul lovingly drop-kicked into the abyss. I was expecting George to haunt me, confuse me, and spiritually yeet me into the void.
So...DID HE DO IT?!
Yep. Vigil is as explosive, playful, and darkly funny as I was expecting, while tackling some of Saunders’ favorite obsessions: corporate greed, capitalism, and the environmental costs of progress.
Reading Vigil's synopsis, you might worry this is just Lincoln in the Bardo all over again, but this is a very different ride. A woman ushers a dying oil company CEO into the afterlife, and the story feels more grounded yet expansive. The CEO insists he has nothing to regret, claiming “I lived big. The world is better for it.” That wild certainty drives the tension between self-delusion and the consequences we leave behind.
Vigil has an indie, experimental vibe, so in my opinion it is not a book guaranteed to please casual readers or anyone looking for a neat, comforting story. It rewards patience and curiosity. Readers willing to get lost in moral complexity, existential humor, and jarring narrative turns will find themselves fully immersed. The pacing alternates between quiet reflection and bursts of chaotic energy-- moments that especially shine in the audiobook (extraordinary performances!).
Saunders is fully in command of his craft. The book manages to be challenging, surprising, and disorienting without being exhausting. As long as you let go and let Saunders lead, it's a ride worth taking.
So...DID HE DO IT?!
Yep. Vigil is as explosive, playful, and darkly funny as I was expecting, while tackling some of Saunders’ favorite obsessions: corporate greed, capitalism, and the environmental costs of progress.
Reading Vigil's synopsis, you might worry this is just Lincoln in the Bardo all over again, but this is a very different ride. A woman ushers a dying oil company CEO into the afterlife, and the story feels more grounded yet expansive. The CEO insists he has nothing to regret, claiming “I lived big. The world is better for it.” That wild certainty drives the tension between self-delusion and the consequences we leave behind.
Vigil has an indie, experimental vibe, so in my opinion it is not a book guaranteed to please casual readers or anyone looking for a neat, comforting story. It rewards patience and curiosity. Readers willing to get lost in moral complexity, existential humor, and jarring narrative turns will find themselves fully immersed. The pacing alternates between quiet reflection and bursts of chaotic energy-- moments that especially shine in the audiobook (extraordinary performances!).
Saunders is fully in command of his craft. The book manages to be challenging, surprising, and disorienting without being exhausting. As long as you let go and let Saunders lead, it's a ride worth taking.
October 16, 2025
Lincoln in the Bardo-verse, but make it about climate change. After a somewhat slow start, this shredded me. I do love Saunders's prose and his style, so I was technically impressed with it but not too emotionally engaged for the first 100 pages or so. Then, though, it reached into the beating heart of what it means to be human and alive and then to die, and cradled it with infinite love and compassion, and I turned into a puddle of soup. I'm AFFECTED, okay, I'm not too cool to say it. And, god, what inventive descriptions.
Jill "Doll" Blaine, you are my new favorite character, I love you so freaking much.
Infinite thanks to Netgalley for the advance reading copy.
Jill "Doll" Blaine, you are my new favorite character, I love you so freaking much.
Infinite thanks to Netgalley for the advance reading copy.
Want to read
September 3, 2025This sounds great and shoots right up to my to read priority list in 2026! Curious to see how this second novel of Saunders is going to be!
Want to read
July 25, 2025NEW GEORGE SAUNDERS!!! LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
December 3, 2025
I love George Saunders so this review is completely biased. You've been warned.
This book has it all - - wit, incredible insights into the human condition, pathos, satire, and a big (capital B big) theme. At first, the plot itself didn't really grab me, but slowly, but surely the book gathers momentum and by the end, my authorial crush survived intact.
The plot is actually quite simple. A wealthy powerful man lays on his deathbed. He has no regrets in life. Jill is sort of a guide in the afterlife who helps and comforts the dying as they pass. Unfortunately, in this particular case, there are some complications.
The storyline itself is really nothing to write home about. But it doesn't matter. By the end, it touched my heart and may have even changed me a little bit. What more can one ask from literature.
This book has it all - - wit, incredible insights into the human condition, pathos, satire, and a big (capital B big) theme. At first, the plot itself didn't really grab me, but slowly, but surely the book gathers momentum and by the end, my authorial crush survived intact.
The plot is actually quite simple. A wealthy powerful man lays on his deathbed. He has no regrets in life. Jill is sort of a guide in the afterlife who helps and comforts the dying as they pass. Unfortunately, in this particular case, there are some complications.
The storyline itself is really nothing to write home about. But it doesn't matter. By the end, it touched my heart and may have even changed me a little bit. What more can one ask from literature.
December 6, 2025
Impossible not to set this against the exceptional Lincoln in the Bardo, focused as both are on the threshold between life and death. Unfortunately, the comparison is not favourable to Vigil. A host of the restive dead visit the dying to offer comfort at the end. Jill Blaine’s life was cut short when she was murdered by a car bomb in a case of mistaken identity. Her latest “charge” is K.J. Boone, a Texas oil tycoon who not only contributed directly to climate breakdown but also deliberately spread anti-environmentalist propaganda through speeches and a documentary. As he lies dying of cancer in his mansion, he’s visited by, among others, the spirits of the repentant Frenchman who invented the engine and an Indian man whose family perished in a natural disaster. I expected a Christmas Carol-type reckoning with climate past and future; in resisting such a formula, Saunders avoids moralizing – oblivion comes for the just and the unjust. However, he instead subjects readers to a slog of repetitive, half-baked comedic monologues. I remain unsure what he hoped to achieve with the combination of an irredeemable character and an inexorable situation. All this does is reinforce randomness and hopelessness, whereas the few other Saunders works I’ve read have at least reassured with the sparkle of human ingenuity. YMMV.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
September 29, 2025
I want to read Saunders’ words about the afterlife continuously until it’s my turn to be in it, and I want his words with me then too.
Read
January 7, 2026
Book Riot’s Most Anticipated Books of 2026:
No one writing fiction today is better at dwelling in life's big questions than George Saunders. Whether he's exploring grief through alternate historical fiction (Lincoln in the Bardo) or questions of agency and ethics through robot-filled sci-fi (Liberation Day), he is always ultimately interested in deeply human concerns. What does it mean to be good? Why are we here? How can we reckon with the realities of loss, pain, and death? It’s heady stuff, yes, made manageable by Saunders’s trademark warmth, humor, and amusement at the human condition. A George Saunders book about end-of-life evaluation? Put it in my veins. —Rebecca Joines Schinsky
No one writing fiction today is better at dwelling in life's big questions than George Saunders. Whether he's exploring grief through alternate historical fiction (Lincoln in the Bardo) or questions of agency and ethics through robot-filled sci-fi (Liberation Day), he is always ultimately interested in deeply human concerns. What does it mean to be good? Why are we here? How can we reckon with the realities of loss, pain, and death? It’s heady stuff, yes, made manageable by Saunders’s trademark warmth, humor, and amusement at the human condition. A George Saunders book about end-of-life evaluation? Put it in my veins. —Rebecca Joines Schinsky
January 13, 2026
Too slim for what it was trying to do
Magically overstays its welcome with such a slight page count
Magically overstays its welcome with such a slight page count
February 1, 2026
Jill is tasked with crashing to Earth to comfort the dying and usher them to their death as they reckon with their past. However, in this case the dying tycoon resists her and a competing entity challenges the dying man.
While I loved the chorus of voices in “Lincoln in the Bardo”, I found the crowd from the tycoon’s past more messy than impactful here. The themes seemed too simplified. It was, however, an interesting attempt at a different book structure. 3.5 stars
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
While I loved the chorus of voices in “Lincoln in the Bardo”, I found the crowd from the tycoon’s past more messy than impactful here. The themes seemed too simplified. It was, however, an interesting attempt at a different book structure. 3.5 stars
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
December 9, 2025
very intriguing little book - a bit on the abstract side and i’m not sure i fully grasped everything saunders was going for here, but still a compelling journey nonetheless. this is very niche but i know the right audience will LOVE this
December 20, 2025
A fantastical and frenetic otherworldly romp, Vigil unfolds at rocket speed while remaining rich in meaning.
A spirit plummets from the heavens tasked to console those in their final moments. She inhabits the minds of her “charges”, offering the dying an opportunity to reconcile their less than stellar worldly efforts in their final moments. Vigil is the wild story of Jill “Doll” Blaine and her attempt to assuage an oil tycoon, but she faces off with a dying giant who refuses to accept the moral errors of his ways.
Corporate greed, climate change and the power of predetermination have never been so entertainingly packed into two hundred pages. Saunders storytelling glows with humor as a physically slight, but psychologically monstrous destroyer of the planet, is visited by beautifully imagined characters from his past. It’s a raucously thought-provoking good time.
Highly recommended to fans of the author and to those who usually veer away from literary fiction.
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for a review copy.
A spirit plummets from the heavens tasked to console those in their final moments. She inhabits the minds of her “charges”, offering the dying an opportunity to reconcile their less than stellar worldly efforts in their final moments. Vigil is the wild story of Jill “Doll” Blaine and her attempt to assuage an oil tycoon, but she faces off with a dying giant who refuses to accept the moral errors of his ways.
Corporate greed, climate change and the power of predetermination have never been so entertainingly packed into two hundred pages. Saunders storytelling glows with humor as a physically slight, but psychologically monstrous destroyer of the planet, is visited by beautifully imagined characters from his past. It’s a raucously thought-provoking good time.
Highly recommended to fans of the author and to those who usually veer away from literary fiction.
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for a review copy.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
My first book by George Saunders and I was pleasantly surprised with how enjoyable it was. Especially the second half. Wow….I was blown away. It started slow but for good reason. The character development throughout the first half just made the rest of the book that much better. I even teared up. It reminded me of a Christmas Carol in a sense with the meaning behind it. There are parts of the book that had me wondering what the heck was going on, but yet it was really thought provoking. I also enjoyed the humor that we got throughout. A really imaginative and interesting read.
Thank you to the publisher for the gifted copy. All opinions are my own.
Thank you to the publisher for the gifted copy. All opinions are my own.
August 8, 2025
A Christmas Carol for the Anthropocene. Adept at writing about the transcendental, Saunders uses an oil company CEO on his deathbed as his foil, a character not wrestling with morality, insofar as outright denying such a thing exists. This falls right in the sweet spot between his short stories and Lincoln in the Bardo. His take on the ethereal is at once universal and essentially his. It is my great pleasure to regurgitate the phrase 'we are watching a master at work.'
January 27, 2026
As with Lincoln in the Bardo, this audible version presents a multitudinous cast voicing the reactions at a deathbed, but this time the person transitioning is an unapologetic oil magnate who has made billions off the controversial industry and thinks the world is better off because of him. Narrated by a grim reaper reminiscent of the heroine of the show Dead Like Me, Vigil is Saunders's climate control, big industry novel that holds interest thanks to his superb writing, but somehow left me cold in the end.
February 1, 2026
What was I thinking? I know better than George Saunders after trying LitB years ago. DNF @ 5% - sometimes all you need's a little taste to know it ain't for you.
To pile on, Vigil has a full cast and a soundtrack. These are not necessarily the pluses publishers think they are.
To pile on, Vigil has a full cast and a soundtrack. These are not necessarily the pluses publishers think they are.
Read
January 16, 2026A Christmas Carol for the climate crisis age, in which a dying oil tycoon is visited by the ghost of a young woman tasked with ushering him to the afterlife, but must first wrestle with her own views on justice and accountability for earthly sins.
Jill “Doll” Blaine plummets to earth at the outset of the novel, finding herself in a rich suburb of Dallas, outside the home of K.J. Boone, an octogenarian titan of industry lying on his deathbed.
Jill has helped over 300 other souls ‘cross over,’ so to speak, but none as stubborn and challenging as Boone, with whom she finds her capacity for comfort and empathy to be running thin. Meanwhile, ghosts of Boone’s past and the surrounding area pop up to help egg him on towards a peaceful and repentant death (Saunders again employs these purgatorial stylings from his debut novel, ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’), while a boisterous wedding goes on in the house next door to Boone’s mansion.
Saunders always delights on a sentence level; his prose is as witty, weird, and wonderful as ever in this book. He has a way of making odd things feel write and natural–whether that’s the use of quotation marks in Jill’s thoughts to highlight her detachment from earthly concepts, after so long a time in the afterlife; or the rapid-fire back and forth of ghosts G. and R. who bring a comic relief to the novel’s more somber atmosphere. There’s no doubt this book is readable and engaging from start to finish, and one you could fly through in an afternoon at only 192 pages.
Thematically, however, it feels like a bit of a rehashing from his previous novel and only other full-length work of fiction he has published (the aforementioned ‘Bardo’). Instead of a sympathetic character surrounded by a choral of voices, we get a dislikeable and remorseless capitalist. The reader has a proxy, at least, in Jill who struggles to move on from her death, her left-behind husband, and her role, as she sees it, as caretaker for the dying. When you learn about the circumstances of her own death, it raises more questions about absolution and compassion in the face of heinous acts that many would deem unforgivable.
I think the conversation Saunders stirs up with this one, the questions he asks and few answers he provides, are more interesting, at times, than the story itself. I didn’t dislike the reading of this book–again, it’s well written, funny, engaging, as all of his works of fiction are–but it felt fairly one-note throughout the whole book. After the 2nd or 3rd visit from the ghosts of his past (heavy references to Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ here), I had a strong inkling to where this book was going, and for the most part, that’s exactly what it did. It didn’t have that same oomph, that surprise or cutting quality that I expect from Saunders.
The novel asks complicated questions about responsibility–who can we blame in a crumbling system: the individuals behind it or the system as a whole? How complicit are we in these messes, and how do we cope with or absolve ourselves of our own role in them? In ways it reminded me of some of the questions asked at the heart of ‘Small Boat’ by Vincent Delecroix, though with, again, less of the strong emotions that novel provoked in me.
Jill “Doll” Blaine plummets to earth at the outset of the novel, finding herself in a rich suburb of Dallas, outside the home of K.J. Boone, an octogenarian titan of industry lying on his deathbed.
Jill has helped over 300 other souls ‘cross over,’ so to speak, but none as stubborn and challenging as Boone, with whom she finds her capacity for comfort and empathy to be running thin. Meanwhile, ghosts of Boone’s past and the surrounding area pop up to help egg him on towards a peaceful and repentant death (Saunders again employs these purgatorial stylings from his debut novel, ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’), while a boisterous wedding goes on in the house next door to Boone’s mansion.
Saunders always delights on a sentence level; his prose is as witty, weird, and wonderful as ever in this book. He has a way of making odd things feel write and natural–whether that’s the use of quotation marks in Jill’s thoughts to highlight her detachment from earthly concepts, after so long a time in the afterlife; or the rapid-fire back and forth of ghosts G. and R. who bring a comic relief to the novel’s more somber atmosphere. There’s no doubt this book is readable and engaging from start to finish, and one you could fly through in an afternoon at only 192 pages.
Thematically, however, it feels like a bit of a rehashing from his previous novel and only other full-length work of fiction he has published (the aforementioned ‘Bardo’). Instead of a sympathetic character surrounded by a choral of voices, we get a dislikeable and remorseless capitalist. The reader has a proxy, at least, in Jill who struggles to move on from her death, her left-behind husband, and her role, as she sees it, as caretaker for the dying. When you learn about the circumstances of her own death, it raises more questions about absolution and compassion in the face of heinous acts that many would deem unforgivable.
I think the conversation Saunders stirs up with this one, the questions he asks and few answers he provides, are more interesting, at times, than the story itself. I didn’t dislike the reading of this book–again, it’s well written, funny, engaging, as all of his works of fiction are–but it felt fairly one-note throughout the whole book. After the 2nd or 3rd visit from the ghosts of his past (heavy references to Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ here), I had a strong inkling to where this book was going, and for the most part, that’s exactly what it did. It didn’t have that same oomph, that surprise or cutting quality that I expect from Saunders.
The novel asks complicated questions about responsibility–who can we blame in a crumbling system: the individuals behind it or the system as a whole? How complicit are we in these messes, and how do we cope with or absolve ourselves of our own role in them? In ways it reminded me of some of the questions asked at the heart of ‘Small Boat’ by Vincent Delecroix, though with, again, less of the strong emotions that novel provoked in me.
November 21, 2025
4.5
Bumpy start, but I was probably welling up with tears for more than half of the last 70 pages and I can't in good conscience give that a 4! And if there's one thing I took away from this book, it's that I'll look back on waffling over rounding my score up or down as a valuable and enriching use of my finite time on this finite Earth!
Bumpy start, but I was probably welling up with tears for more than half of the last 70 pages and I can't in good conscience give that a 4! And if there's one thing I took away from this book, it's that I'll look back on waffling over rounding my score up or down as a valuable and enriching use of my finite time on this finite Earth!
February 1, 2026
George Saunders always gives us a thought-provoking read!
December 7, 2025
seek elevation
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