Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author Russo Gives Back with 'A Healing Touch'
Sales of 'A Healing Touch: True Stories of Life, Death, and Hospice' to benefit Maine hospice organizations.
Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Richard Russo is joined by five Maine authors to pen "A Healing Touch: True Stories of Life, Death and Hospice," proof positive the close of life need not be filled with darkness when hospice is at hand.
Russo, the author of Empire Falls, which won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in fiction and was also named the year’s best novel by Time magazine, Gerry Boyle, Wesley McNair, Susan Sterling, Bill Roorbach and Monica Wood collaborated to interview Maine families and their life-changing experiences found at life's end. These writers recount end-of-life moments that cover the spectrum of human experience, from the man who smashed every dish in his house to the musician who treated one dying woman to the Beach Boys tune “Barbara Ann.”
The writers crafted intensely personal and profoundly moving accounts and are donating royalties from sales of "A Healing Touch" to hospice. Down East will also donate 10 percent of proceeds to the same cause.
Russo, the author of Empire Falls, which won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in fiction and was also named the year’s best novel by Time magazine, Gerry Boyle, Wesley McNair, Susan Sterling, Bill Roorbach and Monica Wood collaborated to interview Maine families and their life-changing experiences found at life's end. These writers recount end-of-life moments that cover the spectrum of human experience, from the man who smashed every dish in his house to the musician who treated one dying woman to the Beach Boys tune “Barbara Ann.”
The writers crafted intensely personal and profoundly moving accounts and are donating royalties from sales of "A Healing Touch" to hospice. Down East will also donate 10 percent of proceeds to the same cause.
Excerpt from “You Know Who You Are,” by Richard Russo
When he was ten, one of his many jobs was driving the tractor, and one particular autumn found him harrowing a field long after dark. It was bitter cold, frightening work for a kid, all alone on a tractor, traveling over unlevel terrain. The tractor’s headlamp shone off into black woods that surrounded the sloping field on three sides, occasionally locating bright eyes among the trees. A cat’s eyes? A dog’s? A deer’s? A bear’s? No, probably not a bear’s, but maybe. If it was a bear, could he outrun it? No. Even trying would risk death or dismemberment. You don’t jump down from a tractor in the dark, not when it’s trailing a harrow. Lee doesn’t remember how much of the field he’d worked when the pin that attached the harrow to the tractor either broke or popped free, but he heard it go and felt the harrow detach. He also knew that it was pointless to search in pitch darkness for a pin that was probably broken anyway. He knew his father would not be pleased, but what choice did he have? There was nothing to do but drive the tractor home. He remembers thinking, “I can’t reverse what’s happened. I can’t control it. It’s gone.”
When he got home, his father was more than displeased. You don’t come home with the job undone, he explained. Life demanded that you be resourceful. Problems had solutions. He should have found a way. He’d not only failed, he’d done the one unforgivable thing: he hadn’t tried.
When he was ten, one of his many jobs was driving the tractor, and one particular autumn found him harrowing a field long after dark. It was bitter cold, frightening work for a kid, all alone on a tractor, traveling over unlevel terrain. The tractor’s headlamp shone off into black woods that surrounded the sloping field on three sides, occasionally locating bright eyes among the trees. A cat’s eyes? A dog’s? A deer’s? A bear’s? No, probably not a bear’s, but maybe. If it was a bear, could he outrun it? No. Even trying would risk death or dismemberment. You don’t jump down from a tractor in the dark, not when it’s trailing a harrow. Lee doesn’t remember how much of the field he’d worked when the pin that attached the harrow to the tractor either broke or popped free, but he heard it go and felt the harrow detach. He also knew that it was pointless to search in pitch darkness for a pin that was probably broken anyway. He knew his father would not be pleased, but what choice did he have? There was nothing to do but drive the tractor home. He remembers thinking, “I can’t reverse what’s happened. I can’t control it. It’s gone.”
When he got home, his father was more than displeased. You don’t come home with the job undone, he explained. Life demanded that you be resourceful. Problems had solutions. He should have found a way. He’d not only failed, he’d done the one unforgivable thing: he hadn’t tried.
Richard Russo lives in Camden.
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