VIGIL by George Saunders

My favorite ghost story writer (Lincoln in the Bardo, anyone?) has dipped into the spiritual realm again with this slim volume about a dying oil tycoon and anti-environmentalist and the angel sent to comfort him before the curtain falls (death). As Jill (the angel) sits by his bedside speaking to him through silent thoughts, another angel appears, a Frenchman begging Jill to “lead him, as quickly as possible, to contrition, shame, and self-loathing” for his crimes against humanity. Will he ask for forgiveness after a contingent of other dead and opinionated stand along the tycoon’s bedside? Or is death but the inevitable fought but lost, and not something to contemplate like the hereafter?  

Favorite line(s): I knew very well where “I” was: underground, Stanley, Indiana, “Sacred Heart of Mary Cemetery,” beneath a willow, fifteen feet from a stone bench upon which “Slurpee cup” rested and had been resting now for the better part of a year, and what: a desiccated brownish-green figure of medium height (length)m cleaved in half at approximately the hip-line, left arm disconnected at the shoulder, a fuzz-beard of mold on what was left of its cheekbones, wearing still, the outfit Lloyd had picked out for me (beige skirt, pale pink blouse, black pumps, my favorite in life, a fact Lloyd had sweetly remembered even in his grief), all of it marked by a disappointingly economical stone reading: J BLAINE, WIFE 1954-1976, the best Lloyd, an assistant deputy, could afford.

But (joy, joy!) that hideous figure was not me, not anymore; nor was I the woman that figure had been when vital, i.e., before her demise, odiously burdened with her stunted diction, her limited view, her nominal ability to comprehend, her constrained love, which she could direct only toward those precious few with whom she had been randomly placed into proximity, i.e., friends, family, husband.

No: this, this now, was me: vast, unlimited in the range and delicacy of my voice, unrestrained in love, rapid in apprehension, skillful in motion, capable, equally, of traversing, within a few seconds’ time, a mile or ten thousand miles.

The champion of a cause I would never forsake:

To comfort.

To comfort whomever I could, in whatever way I might.

For this was the work our great God in Heaven had given me.

THE MATERIAL by Camille Bordas

The novel, about six students and four instructors (mentors?) in an MFA program in stand-up comedy, takes place over 18 hours in December as the students prepare to compete against a rival Chicago improv group (think Second City). Bordas gets the reader into the heads of the hypervigilant characters as they garner new material throughout the day’s events and practice bits they’ve worn thin. The narrative takes us through the insecurities of the comedic art form and how hard these characters work at being funny.

Favorite line(s): This circular thought (from epiphany being stupid to epiphany being what she needed back to epiphany being stupid) took all of a second for Dorothy to go around. Once again, it hadn’t exactly been a thought, the words hadn’t exactly appeared in her head, but she’d experienced a series of split-second flashes that had contained a sense of them. Her brain was so used to opposing any point of view it became aware of, for sport, that it did the same with Dorothy’s own immediate opinions now, too. She was used to seeing these small debates hold themselves in her head, almost entirely in spite of her. That was what should be taught, she felt at times, in a stand-up MFA: how to disagree with anything anyone was saying, how to disagree with what you yourself were saying. The opposite of Yes, and , in a way. How to hold one thing and its opposite to be true, by way of questioning everything all the time. To ask yourself so many questions you ended up believing in nothing. Questions were the primary tool of comedy. Comedy started when someone asked, “Have you noticed?” or “You know this feeling when ….?” Or “What was God thinking?” A good comedian tended to cut out the actual question marks when he revised, to let the questions ask themselves more powerfully through the bit. But it always started with a question. When Chappelle opened his special talking about a friend who’d never considered suicide in spite of his terrible life situation, he didn’t literally ask, “Why do some people kill themselves and others don’t?” But really, he did. Questions were right at the root of comedy, as they were in many other disciplines, from philosophy to the hard sciences, except that in comedy, you were never looking for the real answer, but for the funniest answer, and in order to find the funniest answer, you had to first go through all possible answers. It was exhausting but necessary.

SO OLD, SO YOUNG by Grant Ginder

This novel follows a group of friends who meet in college in 2007, through the death of one of the characters in 2024. So Old, So Young opens in 2024 as Mia flies from London to NYC for the funeral. For Mia and Marco, Sasha and Theo, Richie and Adam, the decades have tested friendships through marriages, children, jobs, adultery, and moves. From wedding reception drama to a Hamptons vacation rental to a Halloween party in the suburbs, the relationships are tested in ways some of the characters never recover from. Others learn and move on. Told in multi-voice point of views, the voices are distinct along with their wounds. Highly engaging.

Favorite line(s): Prudence let out a single, ragged cry. Sasha felt something crack inside of her, something break in her brain. Later she would consider that any number of things could have caused it—it could have been Mia’s text, or Theo’s refusal to go to Whole Foods, or tohe national attack on reproductive rights, or the traffic in northern New Jersey, or the slow decay of her own marriage, or her oppressive, asphyxiating guilt, or the fact that she hadn’t bought enough dry ice, or this, or that, or anything, or nothing. It wasn’t, though. It was a goldfish. It was a small, simple thing that was supposed to be easy, and that instead, over the course of the last five minutes, had come to represent every hopeless problem in her life. Prudence cried again, and Sash’s breath returned to her, flooding her lungs in hot bursts. She tightened her ponytail and took a step toward the man.

“My son won’t eat pasta because it’s too brown,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

“He’ll only eat mac and cheese if the chees isn’t orange, and he can tell the difference between eight different kinds of white bread that are all the exact same color.”

“I don’t follow—”

“My point is that he’s going to be able to distinguish between a goldfish and whatever the fuck it is you’re holding in your hand.”

The man looked at the betta fish, then back at Sasha. The color had drained from his face.

LAKE EFFECT by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney

Two families, neighborhood friends, are torn apart by an affair in the 1970s. It’s repercussions following the families into the 1990s. Hardest hit by the shrapnel of the parents' divorces and subsequent marriages are the children into adulthood. The novel explores all the ramifications of personal happiness versus the “duty” of staying in an unhappy marriage.

Favorite line(s): A small scandal on their block had erupted earlier in the summer when Bess was quoted in the newspaper after leading a workshop as part of a regional conference for women called “Speak-out.” Her session, “Women and Anger,” had sold out so quickly the organizers asked her to hold three more and there was still a waiting list. “Why,” a local reporter asked Bess, “do you think so many women are angry?”

“Where do I begin?” Bess said to him, rolling her eyes. “We’re indentured servants in our own homes, forced to obey the whims of children and husbands. It’s exhausting and maddening. We can’t catch a break. We’ve been told we have more opportunity, but nobody’s giving us a hand with our exiting opportunity. How are we supposed to do all these new things liberations has brought into our lives and find the tine to still run everyone else’s.