The Bells - by Cai Emmons

About the Book

"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"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

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: Stories

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.

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.

Review Quotes

"If you are new to the work of Cai Emmons, prepare to be awed by her sentences and immersed in her world of ideas, as she grapples with goodness, faith, and forgiveness in The Bells. If you are a longtime fan of Cai's, you will marvel at the gift she left us, a feat of generosity and imagination. What begins as a story about Niall, a lapsed monk now corralling a classroom of rowdy teenagers, soon transforms into an examination of making oneself whole in the face of a troubled past. Remarkably, though, 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: Stories

About the Author

Cai Emmons was the author of six novels: This Mother's Son, The Stylist, Weather Woman, Sinking Islands, Livid, and Unleashed, and one short story collection, Vanishing. Winner of the Oregon Book Award, the Leapfrog Press Fiction Contest, a Nautilus Award, and finalist for the Missouri Review Editor's Prize as well as the Narrative Magazine Fiction Prize, Emmons was also short-listed for the Sarton Award and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her essays and stories appeared in such publications as TriQuarterly, LitHub, Electric Literature, The LA Times, and Ms. Magazine. A summa cum laude graduate of Yale College, Emmons held MFA degrees in film and fiction. She taught at several colleges and universities, most recently in the University of Oregon's Creative Writing Program. After living with ALS for two years, she ended her life using Oregon's Death with Dignity laws in January 2023.