Nobody comes to the Lantern on purpose.

It is a bar with no clock, no windows, and a door at the back that opens only when you are ready. The newly dead wander in out of the cold, take a stool, and are poured the drink they need: a late wife's chicory coffee, a blue gas-station slush, the sour vinegar of a Roman legion. They talk. And when they have set down whatever they were carrying, they go.

Behind the bar stands a man who has kept the place for longer than most languages have existed. He listens. He keeps what people leave behind: a letter that never arrived, a baker's floury apron, a phone stuck at one percent. And every night he dusts the one glass on his shelf that no bottle has ever been able to fill.

At the end of the bar sits Nell, in a green coat she never takes off, working the same crossword she brought in on her first night and waiting for someone who has never come.

The bartender knows something about who she is waiting for. He has not told her.

The Lantern is a short, bittersweet novel about grief, forgiveness, and the people who light the way for others.

CONTENT NOTE

This book deals with death and grief, including the death of a child, domestic abuse described in memory, alcoholism, and war.

The Lantern is always open.

Join the list to hear when the book is out and when the next patron walks in. A few letters a year, nothing more.