Sacrament

Centered around a group of nurses in San Bernardino during the first year of a pandemic, acclaimed author Susan Straight weaves a love story between the women and their forged community—a community beset by extreme heat and great change, yet one they’ll risk their lives to protect.In August 2020, four women are nurses working in the ICU at a San Bernardino Hospital at the height of a COVID surge: Larette Embers, whose husband Grief is an Animal Control officer, whose son Dante is obsessed with astrology; Cherrise Martinez, whose husband died years ago in a car crash, whose daughter Raquel has been sent to Coachella to live with her great-aunt in the date gardens to avoid the virus; and two traveling nurses, Pam Ott from Indiana, and Marisol Manalang, born in the Philippines but living in Sacramento.

To safeguard their families, the nurses have moved into RVs close to the hospital, living side by side, working, eating, sleeping as close as sisters. They share food and cigarettes while they care for each other, yet often keep their work experiences private. They are a community in crisis at the height of a pandemic, assisting strangers at the edge of death with infinite tenderness and desperation.