Vigil & Rose/House: Part 1 (Vigil)
About the event
Join us for the entirety of Vigil, George Saunders' riff on It's a Wonderful Life. Because Vigil is a short novel, we will be reading and discussing all of Vigil; for Part 2, we will discuss Arkady Martine's Rose/House.
"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."
Location at Jess White's home in Rogers Park near the Jarvis Red Line stop. "Yes" RSVPs will receive event location details 24 hours before the event. PLEASE MESSAGE JESS ON DISCORD (@inopportunist/Jess) IF YOU DO NOT RECEIVE THE ADDRESS. Feel free to bring any food, drinks, or snacks to share. Jess has three cats for anyone with allergies and you have to walk up a short flight of stairs.
