This reading is sold out.
George Saunders will read from his new novel Vigil, followed by an on-stage conversation with author and National Book Critics Circle finalist Lacy M. Johnson. The evening will conclude with a book sale and signing. The event is presented as part of the 2025/2026 Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series.
MacArthur Fellow George Saunders is “unflinching, delightful, adventurous, compassionate… a true original whose work is absolutely of the moment,” according to a Folio Prize judge. He is the author of two novels, four story collections, several essay collections, and more. Colson Whitehead called his Booker Prize-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo “a luminous feat of generosity and humanism,” and Zadie Smith described it as “a masterpiece.” His story collection Tenth of December won both the Story Prize and the Folio Prize; his other collections include Liberation Day, Pastoralia, and CivilWarLand in Bad Decline. His essay collection A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life examines the work of Tolstoy, Chekhov, Turgenev, and Gogol, displaying his great skill as a teacher. His many honors include Guggenheim and Lannan Fellowships, and he was named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the World.
Saunders joins us with his new novel Vigil, which takes place at the bedside of an oil company CEO, in the twilight hours of his life, as he is ferried from this world into the next – and, in the process, spins a tale that encompasses life and death, good and evil, and the thorny question of absolution. Harper’s Magazine calls Saunders “the most humane American writer working today.”
Lacy M. Johnson is a Houston-based professor, curator, and activist, and is author of The Reckonings, The Other Side — both National Book Critics Circle Award finalists — and Trespasses. She is editor, with the designer Cheryl Beckett, of More City Than Water: A Houston Flood Atlas. She teaches creative nonfiction at Rice University and is the Founding Director of the Houston Flood Museum.
