In The Vigil, Margaret Gibson adroitly interweaves the voices of four women, mothers and daughters of three generations, who, during the course of a single day, reveal the depths of the legacy of alcoholism in their family. On this one day of startling revelations, the full extent of the family's secrets, kept still in the sweep of the years, begins to emerge. As the history of loss and regret unfolds, the women begin to sense those things within them, yet to be spoken, that have passed down from mother to daughter. In the end, we see the four women poised, however precariously, on the thresholds of trust, candor, forgiveness, and love.