First published 2012
Dom Gregory has spent over twenty years in the quiet seclusion of St. Marks monastery, leading forty-five monks in their vow of poverty. Then an unexpected inheritance arrives: twenty-five million dollars. The windfall throws the peaceful community into turmoil. When the monks cannot reach consensus on how to use the money, Gregory meets with Cardinal Mazur, who suggests an radical solution. The abbot must leave his cloistered world and volunteer at Good Samaritan House, a soup kitchen in Manhattan's lower east side. There Gregory encounters a world he has never known, working alongside people like Phil Briley, a recovering addict and artist, and Grace Cullen, the soup kitchen's founder. The city challenges everything Gregory knows about service and sacrifice. After weeks in this alien environment, he returns to St. Marks transformed by his experience of life beyond monastery walls.
Genres: fiction, drama, literary-fiction, contemporary
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Good Samaritan House, Manhattan, St. Marks
Period: 20th-century
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