Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O'Connell's urgent mission to bring healing to homeless people
Jan 2023 · Sold by Random House
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “excellent and immersive” (The Wall Street Journal) 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 author of Mountains Beyond Mountains
“I couldn’t put Rough Sleepers down. I am left in awe of the human spirit and inspired to do better.”—Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, BookPage, Chicago Public Library
Tracy Kidder has been described by The Baltimore Sun as “a master of the nonfiction narrative.” In Rough Sleepers, Kidder tells the story of Dr. Jim O’Connell, a gifted man who invented a community of care for a city’s unhoused population, including those who sleep on the streets—the “rough sleepers.”
After Jim O’Connell graduated from Harvard Medical School and was nearing the end of his residency at Massachusetts General, the hospital’s chief of medicine made a proposal: Would he defer a prestigious fellowship and spend a year helping to create an organization to bring health care to homeless citizens? That year turned into O’Connell’s life’s calling. Tracy Kidder spent five years following Dr. O’Connell and his colleagues as they work with thousands of homeless patients, some of whom we meet in this illuminating book. We travel with O’Connell as he navigates the city streets at night, offering medical care, socks, soup, empathy, humor, and friendship to some of the city’s most endangered citizens. He emphasizes a style of medicine in which patients come first, joined with their providers in what he calls “a system of friends.”
Much as he did with Paul Farmer in Mountains Beyond Mountains, Kidder explores how Jim O’Connell and a dedicated group of people have improved countless lives by facing and addressing one of American society’s most difficult problems, instead of looking away.
“I couldn’t put Rough Sleepers down. I am left in awe of the human spirit and inspired to do better.”—Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, BookPage, Chicago Public Library
Tracy Kidder has been described by The Baltimore Sun as “a master of the nonfiction narrative.” In Rough Sleepers, Kidder tells the story of Dr. Jim O’Connell, a gifted man who invented a community of care for a city’s unhoused population, including those who sleep on the streets—the “rough sleepers.”
After Jim O’Connell graduated from Harvard Medical School and was nearing the end of his residency at Massachusetts General, the hospital’s chief of medicine made a proposal: Would he defer a prestigious fellowship and spend a year helping to create an organization to bring health care to homeless citizens? That year turned into O’Connell’s life’s calling. Tracy Kidder spent five years following Dr. O’Connell and his colleagues as they work with thousands of homeless patients, some of whom we meet in this illuminating book. We travel with O’Connell as he navigates the city streets at night, offering medical care, socks, soup, empathy, humor, and friendship to some of the city’s most endangered citizens. He emphasizes a style of medicine in which patients come first, joined with their providers in what he calls “a system of friends.”
Much as he did with Paul Farmer in Mountains Beyond Mountains, Kidder explores how Jim O’Connell and a dedicated group of people have improved countless lives by facing and addressing one of American society’s most difficult problems, instead of looking away.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “excellent and immersive” (The Wall Street Journal) 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 author of Mountains Beyond Mountains
“I couldn’t put Rough ...
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Ratings and reviews
4 reviews
brf1948
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January 17, 2023
I received a complimentary ARC of this excellent Memoir/Biography from Netgalley, author Tracy Kidder, and Random House Publishing. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read Rough Sleeping of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. I am always pleased to recommend Tracy Kidder to friends and family. He writes in-depth, deeply researched depictions of life in our world. Rough Sleepers follows Dr. Jim O'Connell and his cohorts as they work out
Jayme
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December 23, 2023
I love all of Tracy Kidder's books and how much research and soul he puts into his books. This one is especially inspiring!
About the author
Tracy Kidder graduated from Harvard and the University of Iowa. He won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Award, and many other literary prizes. He is the author of Rough Sleepers, A Truck Full of Money, Good Prose (with Richard Todd), Strength in What Remains, My Detachment, Mountains Beyond Mountains, Home Town, Old Friends, Among Schoolchildren, House, and The Soul of a New Machine. Kidder passed away in 2026.
Tracy Kidder graduated from Harvard and the University of Iowa. He won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Award, and many other literary prizes. He is the author of Rough Sleepers, A Truck Full of Money, Good Prose (with Richard Todd), Strength in What Remains, My ...
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