One Night Two Souls Went Walking
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
"I believe in expecting light. That’s my job.” A hospital chaplain offers compassion to her patients over the course of one eventful night shift, and finds some for herself, too.
A young interfaith chaplain is joined on her hospital rounds one night by an unusual companion: a rough-and-ready dog who may or may not be a ghost. As she tends to the souls of her patients—young and old, living last moments or navigating fundamentally altered lives—their stories provide unexpected healing for her own heartbreak. Balancing wonder and mystery with pragmatism and humor, Ellen Cooney (The Mountaintop School for Dogs and Other Second Chances) returns to Coffee House Press with a generous, intelligent novel that grants the most challenging moments of the human experience a shimmer of light and magical possibility.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A hospital chaplain working the night shift recalls encounters with patients, coworkers, and a therapy dog named Bobo Boy in Cooney's illuminating latest (after The Mountaintop School for Dogs and Other Second Chances). The unnamed 30-something chaplain, who wears her white collar with bright-colored blouses rather than clerical black, first became curious about the nature of souls in her childhood. She mentions her large family and two ex-lovers, but her focus is on the ill, injured, and dying strangers she's assigned to help such as the bus driver involved in a crash where four people died, the bank teller who wants to be sure the angel carrying her into the afterlife is strong enough not to drop her, and the 91-year-old stroke victim nurses believe suffers from dementia. When a therapy dog escapes his handler, the chaplain remembers Bobo Boy, the beloved deceased mixed-breed therapy dog with a gift for providing comfort and a tendency to break loose. Brief, vivid portraits of Bobo Boy, doctors, nurses, patients and the chaplain herself form a memorable collage of souls in need. Cooney's uplifting novel captures extraordinary moments of sadness, pain, and grace, as one woman brings light to life's darkest moments.
