First published 1993
Richard Kraft works as a surgical resident in the pediatric ward of Angel City's public hospital. He has been pushed to his breaking point by endless shifts and impossible cases. The children under his care include a young Asian refugee, a boy aging at an alarming rate, and others born with severe defects. These patients share only their dire circumstances and uncertain futures. Kraft partners with Linda Espera, an idealistic therapist who believes stories can heal. Together they use tales from the Pied Piper to Peter Pan to keep their young patients fighting. The stories they tell mirror the children's own displacement and wandering. As Kraft and Espera weave narratives of lost children seeking home, they confront their own forgotten childhoods. The hospital becomes a place where imagination battles against medical reality and where the adult caregivers must find ways to nurture hope in the face of inevitable endings.
Genres: literary-fiction, medical, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, healing-through-stories
Setting: California, Los Angeles
352 pages · Hardcover · William Morrow & Co
Content warnings: medical-trauma