A wild ride through recent history, otherworldly reunions and good and evil – suitably big themes for one of America's most distinguished and original writers

Spectator

A tender morality tale … intrigue thrums everywhere

Observer

The first must-read book of the year

Vogue

Faulkner meets Citizen Kane... such is Saunders' skill and empathetic imagination that the questions raised by his concocted other world... generally prove more mysterious than mystifying

Financial Times

Staggering... Saunders has outdone himself with this endlessly irreverent work of art

Publishers Weekly

Vigil… moves into even more anarchic and funny territory than that 2017 Booker-winning masterpiece with this new novel's unhinged spirits and pitiful ghosts… a meditation on the manipulative nature of modern language… resonates deeply in our fractious, selfish age

Independent