AfterWards: Searching for Racial Justice in the Time of a Pandemic

Description

You are invited to AfterWards: a program in narrative medicine, featuring "Searching for Racial Justice in the Time of a Pandemic: The Hanging of Ruben Ashford," a reading by Lauren Small.

The program will also be available by Zoom. A wine-and-cheese reception following with book signing for in-person attendees.

The Hanging of Ruben Ashford is a work of historical fiction, set in Baltimore during the influenza epidemic of 1918. At the heart of the novel is a murder mystery and the love of two remarkable women. Josie Berenson, psychology researcher at the Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, struggles to defend a young Black man from west Baltimore who has been accused of murdering a white woman. Meanwhile her partner, Hopkins-trained physician Nell Winters, confronts a deadly epidemic that rapidly spreads through the city, killing thousands. In The Hanging of Ruben Ashford, the search for racial justice in the time of a pandemic comes to life, eerily prefiguring our own era. The path forward, Josie and Nell discover, is fraught with difficulty, but still offers reasons for hope. The book is available on Amazon, Bookshop, and other retailers.

Read a review in Hopkins Medicine Magazine.