Featuring a moderated Q&A with Dr. Jim O’Connell,
President of Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program
“Listening to the man’s story, Jim felt he’d been granted a privilege. This was intimate contact with life, the very thing he had missed during all those years of reading philosophy.”
Tracy Kidder, Rough Sleepers
Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Kidder spent five years following Dr. Jim O’Connell and his colleagues at the Boston Health Care for the Homeless for his latest book, Rough Sleepers.
The powerful story of an inspiring doctor who made a difference, by helping to create a program to care for Boston’s homeless community. Kidder explores how a small but dedicated group of people have changed countless lives by facing one of American society’s difficult problems, instead of looking away.
Tracy Kidder is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Award, and many other literary prizes. His books include The Soul of a New Machine, House, Among Schoolchildren, Old Friends, Home Town, Mountains Beyond Mountains, My Detachment, Strength in What Remains, and (with Richard Todd) Good Prose. He is a graduate of Harvard University and studied at the University of Iowa.
Dr. Jim O’Connell serves as the President of Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program and is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His work is the subject of Tracy Kidder’s Rough Sleepers. Dr. O’Connell received his medical degree from Harvard University in 1982 and completed residency in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.
More about Tracy Kidder
Tracy Kidder’s website
NPR, March 15, 2023
‘Rough Sleepers’: How one person can make a difference caring for the unhoused
The Washington Post, February 15, 2023
‘Rough Sleepers’ follows a doctor devoted to the homeless
“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. As with Mountains Beyond Mountains, I am left in awe of the human spirit and inspired to do better. That is Kidder’s genius.”
ABRAHAM VERGHESE, AUTHOR OF CUTTING FOR STONE
Books
Copies of Rough Sleepers , along with other titles by Tracy Kidder, are available from White Whale Bookstore.
Sponsored by Allegheny Health Network Center for Inclusion Health
With additional support from Second Avenue Commons
