The Maris Review, vol 92

Maris Kreizman

17 Feb 2026 — 4 min read

The theme of the week is heroines of the telephone company

What I read this week

Vigil by George Saunders

Is Vigil George Saunders's best work or third best work or fifth best work? No. But do his sentences still sing, each and every one of them? Even a less than perfect George Saunders book is still better than most things. His impeccable sense of the absurd is still intact. He peppers much of the ugliness he writes about with so many glimpses of joy, like when he describes the children at a wedding next door to where a man is dying who are desperately trying to get their hands on some Maraschino cherries. Extra joy: I made sure to listen to a little bit of the audiobook, which is a full cast performance with Judy Greer absolutely destroying in the lead.

Vigil is the story of Jill "Doll" Blaine, a former telephone operator who died in a bizarre and tragic blast in 1976 when she was 22 years old and just beginning her life with her new husband. Now she helps the mortally sick pass into the realm of death, like a dead death doula.

But her latest charge is a tough case: an oil magnate who's giving Ebenezer Scrooge, more of a great big symbol of greed and destruction rather than a character. KJ Boone is a man who raised himself up by his bootstraps to become a great destroyer of the environment, scornful of the losers and idiots who opposed him along the way. We know this guy. This guy is everywhere. Will KJ Boone repent before his demise? Seems unlikely.

Here is where I should say that although I may not be the president of the George Saunders Fan Club, I'm definitely a member in good standing. He did in fact do my podcast twice. Over the years I've watched him go from beloved teacher of writing to something more like a Substack guru? And with that rise, I think, comes some tradeoffs.

Saunders has always excelled at skewering fat cats, but in the case of Vigil I wish he would plumb the depths of their depravity with a little more... I think the word I'm looking for here is tact. The entire fat cat world is so in your face (in my face) at the moment that the simple portayal of one of them is not enough. I wanted more unknowns, more layers of murky wondering. Definitive answers with a nice neat moral bow tie at the end are for people who are uncomfortable with nuance. I never imagined Saunders would be the one to write for them.

Evil Genius by Claire Oshetsky

A revenge novel inspired by a John Cheever Story, Evil Genius is "he had it coming" in literary form. It is short and precise and unhinged, but weirdly joyful, the noirish Goodbye Earl of it all.

Celia Dent is 19 years old in 1974, but even with many cultural references including Patti Hearst and Richard Nixon, she's so unworldly she often seems to be more like a 50s housewife. Her husband Drew is a controlling piece of shit in all of the familiar ways of domestic violence. Celia's job at the telephone company, where she fields calls from customers who can't pay their bills (she also fields calls from a bunch of perverts including one she refers to as the Sock Man) is her one escape from him.

Then her colleague at the phone company is caught up in a love triangle that ends in murder, and death begins to weigh heavily on Celia's mind. It's so fun to watch Celia wise up and her world become so much bigger. She buys two knives at a pawn shop on her lunch break, including one small enough to keep in her boot. She goes out to drinks with coworkers and flirts with a guy on the commuter train. She contemplates mariticide, and there is both dread and wild glee as we inch closer and closer to Drew's demise. What actually happens is a lot more complicated than a simple murder plot, but the novel isn't about Drew anyway. It's about what liberation looks like with a little bit of luck. An absolute delight.

Yep, I'm still promoting my book

On Saturday, I spent Valentine's Day at a delightful new reading series called Funny Pages hosted by Zach Zimmerman and Blythe Robertson at P&T Knitwear. Don't worry – Josh came too. In honor of Valentine's Day I read from an essay from my book entitled "I Found Love – And Health Insurance – Because I Got Lucky."

I'm posting a photo from the event because it was so wonderful to see Forest of Noise by Mosab Abu Toha face out in the Poetry & Performing Arts section, which means it will be featured in a lot of photographs. I know there's been a little trouble at P&T about merchandising books that affirm the humanity of Palestinian people, so this was good to see.

TONIGHT I will be at a series called Brooklyn Chats at Heritage Wines in Fort Greene, talking to Patrick Sauer. Tickets are free with RSVP. Hope to see you there.