Hank Heals

In David Guy’s sixth novel, Henry Wilder has returned to Durham, NC, and is unsuccessfully trying to establish a new Zen center there, when his ex-girlfriend Julie believes he has cured her recurring cancer with his touch and proclaims—to practically everyone she knows—that he has healing powers.

The zendo fills with new students who want to learn meditation but also want Hank to heal them. He resists their entreaties, but touches one woman who has a migraine, hugs another who is a hypochondriac, and stories of his healings spread. It is when he cures the son of Julie’s Latina housekeeper of a bad limp that his reputation takes off. A Nightly News story goes to YouTube, and soon the zendo is crowded to capacity. Body workers ask Hank for his secret. The local Catholic priest shows up. The situation gets totally out of hand.

Hank Heals is a lighthearted comedy about the way a spiritual teacher tries to empower his followers, but they invest him with all the power.

“Reading Hank Heals gave me a fresh burst of hope and excitement about the true nature of our beings. It’s a rare piece of writing that does that.” —Peggy Payne, author of Sister India

“…brilliant, wise, moving, and funny. Like, really funny. … Spiritual writing like this is rare. “ —Shozen Jack Haubner, author of Zen Confidential

“…a terrific novel written by a deft and effortless storyteller who knows how to keep a yarn moving and immerse you in its characters.” —Norman Fischer, author of When You Greet Me I Bow

“… Zen-like in its spare prose and … sparkles with wisdom and wry wit.” —Barbara McHugh, author of Bride of the Buddha

About David Guy

I was eleven years old when I first saw that there was something about language that fascinated me, fifteen when I decided—God help me—that I wanted to be a writer. Though I have worked in libraries and taught at various schools and in different capacities, writing has been my true vocation. In the decade beginning when I was 32, I published four novels, Football Dreams (1980), The Man Who Loved Dirty Books (1983), Second Brother (1985), and The Autobiography of My Body (1990). I also published articles in various publications during those years, and was active as a book reviewer.

In 1991, my wife dragged me to a class at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center and I discovered the spiritual practice that became central to my life. Since 1995 I have practiced with Josho Pat Phelan at the Chapel Hill Zen Center.

I worked with my first meditation teacher, Larry Rosenberg, on two books, Breath by Breath: The Liberating Practice of Insight Meditation (1994) and Living in the Light of Death: On the Art of Being Truly Alive (2001). I wrote for various Buddhist publications during those years, and published The Red Thread of Passion: Spirituality and the Paradox of Sex (1999).

In 2001 I began working at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy, teaching in both the MPP and Hart Leadership Programs. Working at Duke freed me to get back to narrative writing, and in 2007 I published Jake Fades: A Novel of Impermanence. In November of 2022 I’m publishing a new novel with the same narrator, Hank Heals: A Novel of Miracles. I’m at work on a third volume of the trilogy.

I retired from Duke in 2014. I currently live part of the year in Durham and part in Asheville, and spend my time writing, reading, sitting, swimming at various pools, taking long walks, and getting together with friends.

A recent interview of me on
KKNW’s The Loretta Brown Show.