This novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Bewilderment examines life in a hospital children’s ward, innocence, and the power of storytelling.

In the pediatric 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.

Praise for Operation Wandering Soul

National Book Award Finalist

”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

“Powers’s prose soars . . . memorably capturing the moments of joy and anguish, barrenness and grace, that add up to life.” —Washington Post Book World

“Powers . . . continues to baffle and excite. . . . Powers has a remarkable, virtuoso voice.” —Publishers Weekly

“Mingling wisps of whimsy and a hard-edged, surgical view, this cuts deeply into the human condition.” —Kirkus Reviews

This novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Bewilderment examines life in a hospital children’s ward, innocence, and the power of storytelling.

In the pediatric 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.

Praise for Operation Wandering Soul

National Book Award Finalist

”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

“Powers’s prose soars . . . memorably capturing the moments of joy and anguish, barrenness and grace, that add up to life.” —Washington Post Book World

“Powers . . . continues to baffle and excite. . . . Powers has a remarkable, virtuoso voice.” —Publishers Weekly

“Mingling wisps of whimsy and a hard-edged, surgical view, this cuts deeply into the human condition.” —Kirkus Reviews