June Book Club Meeting, Online

Our June book is Vigil by George Saunders (192 pages).

2026 Schedule
June 18: Vigil by George Saunders (192 pages)
July 16: The Girl Who Wrote In Silk by Kelli Estes (400 pages)
August 20: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (304 pages)
September 17: The Wager by David Grann (352 pages)

Past 2026 Schedule
DONE January: The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson
DONE February: Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
DONE March: The Women by Kristin Hannah
DONE April: Born A Crime by Trevor Noah
DONE May: Culpability by Bruce Holsinger

Synopsis
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.

Meeting Details
This is an online video meeting. Google Meet code will be visible closer to the event for those who have rsvp'd.