The Bells : A Novel

AUTHOR OF LIVID • SHORTLISTED FOR THE MISSOURI REVIEW EDITORS PRIZE, THE SARTON AWARD, AND THE NAUTILUS AWARD • Cai Emmons awes readers with the release of  THE BELLS“A book Cai finished on the day she died, is a story of life: how to live fully, embrace our messy complications, and swim toward love.”–Miriam Gershow, author of Closer and Survival Tips: StoriesThirty-three-year-old Niall O’Malley has failed a five-year mission to live as a monk and is attempting to redefine himself as a high school teacher in New Jersey. As The Bells opens, thirty-three-year-old Niall O’Malley has failed a five-year mission to live as a monk and is attempting to redefine himself as a high school teacher in New Jersey.

The transition has been bumpy. He loves teaching history to inner city teens, but he hits a roadblock when a belligerent student, Colton, possibly a white-supremacist, behaves in ways that threaten Niall.

As troubles mount at school, Niall’s girlfriend Lluvia pressures him into making a deeper commitment to their relationship.

She wants them to move in together with Lluvia’s pre-teen daughter and elderly mother.

Haunted by his failure as a Cistercian monk and his troubles with one man in particular, the abusive Brother Thomas, Niall abandons Lluvia and heads back to his old monastery in Massachusetts for a final showdown with Thomas, now dying of ALS.

Redemption for Niall is elusive as he strives to mend his faith.