This Boston Globe Magazine cover story appeared in the June 2, 2002 issue. It was a difficult story to write because of the wrenching subject matter and the intensity of emotions surrounding it.

The story is a profile of Louis Brown. Louis was a talented high school sophomore who was murdered on December 23, 1993. Ironically, he was on his way to an afternoon Christmas party for a group he belonged to called Teens Against Gang Violence. Caught in a bullet shooting fray by dueling gang members, he died a few blocks from his neighborhood train station in Boston.

A year after his death his parents, Tina and Joseph Chery, founded the Louis D. Brown Institute for Peace. The Institute offers innovative literacy programs for Boston schools as well as support groups for families who are victims of violent crime.

Selected works, excerpts and previews

Fiction

Shoreline, a short story published in Northeast Corridor
Laura moves out of her house and into a summer cottage to reconsider the viability of her marriage.

Night Swim, a novel
16-year-old Sarah, a gifted singer from an upper middle class Jewish family, tells the story of her family following the tragic loss of her mother. Set in suburban Boston in the late 1960s.

Body Chemistry, a novel
College grad, Elizabeth Gold, learns she has contracted a fatal illness called Aplastic Anemia. The difficult news sends her on a search for a cure, but she quickly learns the options are high risk. In the process she faces ambiguities in family relationships, a failing romance, and an influx of caretakers, including an eccentric faith healer and an entrepreneurial apartment mate. A novel about the healing power of love.

Profiles

The Afterlife of Louis Brown, A Boston Globe Magazine cover story. June 2002
How the murder of a Boston teenager became a force for change.

Memoir

The Quiet Revolution, published in CBR Institute for Biomedical Research, annual report '02
A personal story about aplastic anemia.