Jill “Doll” Blaine kicked the proverbial bucket in 1976, but she’s found a new purpose in her afterlife—to comfort the dying in their final moments. In George Saunders’s “Vigil: A Novel,” she’s not an angel. She’s more like a well-intentioned candy striper who’s ill-equipped to perform her duties, even though she’s done this service over 300 times.
Her “charge” this time around is Boone, an influential oil tycoon whose cancerous tumors have decimated his body. He can’t communicate with the living anymore and can only recall his memories. Then, there are spirits like Jill, who visit and plague him.
