This excellent story by George Saunders echoes his Booker Prize winning, Lincoln in the Bardo. Like that novel, it is located somewhere between life-and-death. A billionaire oil tycoon, K J Boone, is doing the dying, watched over by a sympathetic spirit, Jill Blaine, who was unfortunately blown up in her car in a case of mistaken identity.

K J Boone is being given the opportunity to repent, or at least to regret, some of the activities which made him so rich and successful but also badly damaged the environment. What is worst is that he knew about this damage but used faked research papers, corruption and downright lies to conceal it. You can tell whose side George Saunders is on!

Various other spirits turn up to say their piece including a Frenchman who has tracked all of Boone’s wickedness and his daughter, who is still alive, and has inherited most of it.

Considering the topic, you wouldn’t expect this book to be comical but it is full of entertaining insights and reflections about the inevitability of people like Boone existing while the creation of a temporary afterlife is sustained with humour. There’s also a serious message in there about the American oil industry and the environment which is still topical. It’s a great read!