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	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
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Memoirs

ROUGH SLEEPERS

Tracy Kidder

The powerful story of an inspiring doctor who made a difference, by helping to create a program to care for Boston's homeless community - by the Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times bestselling author of Mountains Beyond Mountains.

James Joseph O'Connell, known to his patients as "Doctor Jim," has led Boston's Healthcare for the Homeless Program for decades, bringing medical attention to the people who need it most without cost. A mild-mannered, modest, and relentless hard-working man, Jim has managed to form a support network and build a sense of trust with a population that every other system has failed. With Jim as his guide, Kidder explores a society just beneath the surface of every city, learning the stories of the homeless and how difficult it is for them to find the support they so desperately need. As patients like big-hearted Tony struggle to find housing and beat addiction, Jim serves as a guiding force, illuminating both the difference an individual can make and the huge amount that still must be done to solve the complicated problem of homelessness in America. Tracy Kidder is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the author of the bestsellers The Soul of a New Machine, House, Among Schoolchildren, and Home Town. He has been described by the "Baltimore "Sun as the "master of the non-fiction narrative." His biography of Dr. Paul Farmer, MOUNTAINS BEYOND MOUNTAINS, was a New York Times bestseller.

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Book Published 2023-02-07 by Random House

Comments

I couldn't put Rough Sleepers down till the last page. Kidder's writing sidesteps labels like "homeless" to reveal the humanity of those who live on the streets. I agonized with the dedicated physician and the army of others who give their lives to a cause most of us pretend is invisible; I rejoiced in the fleeting victories. As with Mountains Beyond Mountains, I am left in awe of the human spirit and inspired to do better. That is Kidder's genius.

Tracy Kidder has done it yet again. Rough Sleepers will do for homelessness what Mountains Beyond Mountains did for public health. Kidder introduces us to this wondrous cast of characters who have been completely shunted aside. He doesn't let us look away. And we take this journey alongside this astonishingly bighearted, patient, thoughtful man in Jim O'Connell, a doctor to the homeless. I'm in awe of this book. I'm in awe of Jim O'Connell. What a compellingly beautiful, inspiring read.

The estimable Tracy Kidder has found another unsung saint - this time not in the back country of Haiti or in genocide-ravaged Burundi, but, literally, on the streets of a major American city. And once again, as with his earlier books, this finely-crafted story sheds light on a larger landscape of injustice.

Tracy Kidder's portrait of a doctor and his homeless patients ofers personhood to people many Americans have trained themselves not to see [...] For a long time, O'Connell resisted the temptation to photograph patients, for fear of being intrusive. Then one asked him to, and many others followed. Accustomed to invisibility, they were grateful to be noticed. That's what this impressive book achievesit allows these overlooked people to be seen.