Recently, a music ensemble in which I participate accepted an invitation to perform at a local nursing home during the December holidays. Although many of our members enjoyed the opportunity to connect with its residents over music, others privately confessed a reluctance to do so, saying that nursing homes make them emotionally uncomfortable. In his first novel, THE SWEET BY AND BY, Todd Johnson sheds some light on why all of us might feel that unease from time to time, while also arguing passionately for maintaining ongoing connections to our society's oldest members, even when we can't see that what we do makes a difference.

THE SWEET BY AND BY takes place primarily in the halls and rooms of a North Carolina nursing home. At the center of the novel are two of its residents, Margaret Clayton and Bernice Stokes. Margaret is still totally lucid, at times much to the dismay of the home's nurses and administrators, as well as the less-than-perfect families of other residents. She has a tendency to be bossy and self-righteous, but she also cares deeply about the people in her life. Bernice is one of those people, even though she couldn't be less like Margaret. Bernice is unfailingly optimistic, perhaps because she’s lost her grip on reality most of the time. Her constant companion is a stuffed monkey she’s named Mister Benny. Margaret and Bernice form a surprisingly close duo, navigating together the sometimes confusing waters of old age.

The two old women are also cared for by others, especially Lorraine, the African American LPN who sincerely cares about them and remains dedicated to preserving the humanity and dignity of all her patients. Both Bernice and Margaret also become close to Rhonda, the young woman who does hair in the nursing home's beauty salon one day a week, a scheduled event that inevitably becomes the high point of the residents' week. Rhonda has her own reasons for taking the job in the first place, but she finds herself drawn into the residents' circle almost in spite of herself. "Those two old women have gotten up under my skin," she notes, and her sentiment is not meant unkindly.

Lorraine, Rhonda and Margaret, as well as Lorraine's daughter April, a medical student, tell their stories in alternating chapters. Johnson skillfully distinguishes the separate voices through the use of a natural-seeming Southern dialect and other cues. At times, the chapters dovetail into one another; more often, each chapter stands alone much like a short story, describing a single anecdote or incident.

Johnson's careful connection of these moments to significant events --- weddings, graduations, holidays --- conveys the passage of time. This consistent, deliberate attention to time, as well as the privileging of character and theme over plot, helps the entire novel's mood reflect the experience of being in a closed, mostly eventless environment like a nursing home. In powerful scenes and quiet moments alike, Johnson urges readers, especially those who might be inclined to forget about or avoid the elderly in real life, to remember that they exist and to wonder what we owe them --- and what they can still offer us.