Vigil
by George Saunders· 2026
The story revolves around the final evening of a brash oil baron as he is ferried into the afterlife.
Not for the first time, Jill “Doll” Blaine finds herself hurtling toward earth, reconstituting as she falls, right down to her favourite 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 through the wild final evening of an epic, complicated life. Crowds of people and animals – worldly and otherworldly, alive and dead – arrive, clamouring 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 materialises, two oil-business cronies from decades past show up with chilling plans for Boone’s post-death future.
George Saunders takes on the menace of corporate greed, the toll of capitalism, and the environmental perils of progress, spinning a tale that encompasses life and death, good and evil, and the thorny question of absolution.
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The story revolves around the final evening of a brash oil baron as he is ferried into the afterlife. Not for the first time, Jill “Doll” Blaine finds herself hurtling toward earth, reconstituting as she falls, right down to her favourite 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 through the wild final evening of an epic, complicated life. Crowds of people and animals – worldly and otherworldly, alive and dead – arrive, clamouring 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 materialises, two oil-business cronies from decades past show up with chilling plans for Boone’s post-death future. George Saunders takes on the menace of corporate greed, the toll of capitalism, and the environmental perils of progress, spinning a tale that encompasses life and death, good and evil, and the thorny question of absolution.