Document Type
Book Review
Abstract
George Saunders’s Vigil is presented as a sharp, unsettling novel about climate ethics, corporate power, and the stories people use to excuse harm. The review argues that the book’s magical-real realist structure turns a dying oil executive’s final night into a moral reckoning, while also showing how family myth, corporate language, and public discourse shape denial. It also notes that the novel’s allegorical design can feel heavy-handed at times, but its central strength is its forceful critique of complicity and the difficulty of moral awakening.
Recommended Citation
Woodgeard, Stephen
(2026)
"Book Review: Vigil: A Novel,"
Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy: Vol. 13:
Iss.
2, Article 3.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dialogue/vol13/iss2/3
Included in
American Popular Culture Commons, Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Commons