Press Release
St. Louis County Library Foundation’s Arthur Gale Medical Arts Lecture Series presents Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder for a discussion of his book “Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O’Connell’s Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People.”
The event will take place on Monday, January 23 at 7:00 p.m. at the Ethical Society of St. Louis, 9001 Clayton Road, St. Louis MO 63117.
The program is free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase at the event from Left Bank Books.
Pulitzer Prize–winning, New York Times bestselling author of “Mountains Beyond Mountains,” Tracy Kidder shares the powerful story of an inspiring doctor who made a difference, by helping to create a program to care for Boston’s homeless community.
Tracy Kidder has been described by The Baltimore Sun as a “master of the nonfiction narrative.” In “Rough Sleepers,” Kidder shows how one person can make a difference, as he tells the story of Dr. Jim O’Connell, a gifted man who invented ways to create a community of care for a city’s unhoused population, including those who sleep on the streets—the “rough sleepers.”
When Jim O’Connell graduated from Harvard Medical School and was nearing the end of his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, the 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 his life’s calling. Tracy Kidder spent five years following Dr. O’Connell and his colleagues as they served their thousands of homeless patients. In this illuminating book we travel with O’Connell as he navigates the city, 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 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 has won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Robert F. Kennedy Award, among other literary prizes. His books include “Mountains Beyond Mountains,” “Strength in What Remains,” “Among Schoolchildren,” and “The Soul of a New Machine,” recipient of both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
The Arthur Gale Medical Arts Lecture Series at St. Louis County Library was founded in 2015 by Dr. Arthur Gale with the purpose of increasing the public's knowledge and understanding of medicine and health care.
Program sites are accessible. With at least two weeks' notice, accommodations will be made for persons with disabilities. Call 314-994-3300 or contact us.