The Precious Jules

A deeply felt family narrative that examines the fine line between selfishness and what passes for love.

After nearly two hundred years of housing retardants, as they were once known, the Beechwood Institute is closing the doors on its dark history, and the complicated task of reassigning residents has begun. Ella Jules, having arrived at Beechwood at the tender age of eight, must now rely on the state to decide her future. Ella's aging parents have requested that she be returned to her childhood home, much to the distress of Ella's siblings, but more so to Lynetta, her beloved caretaker who has been by her side for decades. The five adult Jules children, haunted by their early memories of their sister, and each dealing with the trauma of her banishment in their own flawed way, are converging on the family home, arriving from the far corners of the country-secrets in tow-to talk some sense into their aging parents and get to the root of this inexplicable change of heart.

The Precious Jules examines the thin line between selfishness and what passes for love. This family story asks what is best for one child in light of what is perceived as the greater good, and just what is the collective legacy of buried family secrets, shame, and helplessness. The Precious Jules is a deeply felt family narrative that will make you fall in love with these flawed and imperfect characters standing on the threshold of an awakening they never expected.

Shawn Nocher is the author of the critically acclaimed novel A Hand to Hold in Deep Water. Her short stories and nonfiction articles have been published in SmokeLong Quarterly, Pithead Chapel, MoonPark Review, Writer's Digest, and Electric Literature, among others.

She teaches in the master of arts writing program at Johns Hopkins University, has given wings to two children, and lives with her husband and an assortment of sassy rescue animals in Baltimore, Maryland, where she writes in a room of her own.