I. The van -- II. The art of healing -- Conscripted -- Foot soaking -- Disaster medicine -- III. The pantheon -- Numbers -- A new face -- The street team meeting -- Angels without wings -- The memorial service -- IV. Against medical advice -- No loud voices -- Upside-down medicine -- Death by housing -- Eulogies for Barbara -- Living life backwards -- V. Searching for meaning -- A history of Tony -- Inventing a purpose -- The social director -- Autumn street rounds -- Success -- VI. A system of friends -- Winter comes -- Tony's world -- The beauty of human connection -- Sisyphus -- Boundaries and limits -- The gala -- The prism -- VII. The night watchman -- The worry list -- Button-down-shirt moments -- The hug -- The law of pariahs -- In Boston Municipal Court -- Childhood -- A free man -- Confession -- The night watchman -- VIII. The portrait gallery -- A pandemic season -- The portrait gallery

"When he graduated from Harvard Medical School, Jim O'Connell was asked by the medical school Dean to spend one year setting up a program to care for the homeless population in Boston. It became Jim O'Connell's life calling, to help people known as "rough sleepers." For the past three decades, Dr. O'Connell has run the Boston Healthcare for the Homeless Program, which he helped to create. Affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital, the program includes clinics and a van on which Dr O'Connell and his staff ride through the Boston streets at night, offering outreach of medical care, socks, soup, and friendship to a marginalized community"--