Operation Wandering Soul: A Novel

National Book Award Finalist

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The
Overstory and the forthcoming Bewilderment, an exquisitely rendered
novel set in the pediatrics ward of a public hospital that examines the power,
joy, and anguish of storytelling.

 “If you have children or will have children,
if you know children or can remember being a child, dare to read Operation
Wandering Soul. . . [it] is bedtime reading for the future.” —USA Today

In the pediatrics ward of a public hospital
in the heart of Los Angeles, a group of sick children is gathering. Surrogate
parents to this band of stray kids, resident Richard Kraft and therapist Linda
Espera are charged with keeping the group alive on make-believe alone.
Determined to give hope where there is none, the adults spin a desperate
anthology of stories that promise restoration and escape. But the inevitable is
foreshadowed in the faces they’ve grown to love, and ultimately Richard and
Linda must return to forgotten chapters in their own lives in order to make
sense of the conclusion drawing near.

"If you have children or will have children, if you know children or can remember being a child, dare to read Operation Wandering Soul...Dense in knowledge, rich in imagination, powerful in expression, [it] is bedtime reading for the future. Like the stories read to children, this intensely caring novel can help prevent the nightmare it describes, children out too late at night, far from home, lost, the wandering souls of the future, our future." - USA Today

"Powers's prose soars like the most magnificent of choirs, memorably capturing the moments of joy and anguish, barrenness and grace, that add up to life." - Washington Post Book World