About the Novel

ABOUT THE NOVEL

The Chaplain’s Chair: Conversations at the Edge of Life follows two hospice chaplains whose different approaches to spiritual care bring them into the lives of people confronting illness, loss, faith, doubt, regret, forgiveness, and the approach of death.

Thomas Vale is an experienced chaplain who has learned that the most important conversations rarely begin with the right answer. Maya is younger, highly trained, thoughtful, and still discovering what it means to accompany people when professional competence alone is not enough.

Through their encounters with patients and families—and with each other—the novel explores what happens when time grows short and the questions people have carried for a lifetime can no longer be avoided.

This is not simply a story about dying. It is a story about the relationships, questions, hopes, and unfinished work of living that give our lives meaning…and what to do with the time we have left.

At its heart, The Chaplain’s Chair asks a question that belongs not only to people who are dying, but to all of us:

If the conversations that matter most could no longer wait, what would you need to say?