The night my mom died I couldn’t sleep for the fun. So begins Raymond Shackleford’s confused odyssey, with the news he receives on the very first page of this novel.

I Am a Prayer is about loss and it’s about gifts, and the efforts we make to find meaning in life when tragedy is an inescapable aspect of love. Ray’s journey takes him to a variety of venues—from a dance-club to the depths of his own past—but it will be a chance encounter with a stranger that changes everything.