Conversations Over Cold Soup

Listen: Arthur Trent was a decent man, once. Then age crept up on him. Now, he lives (if you can call it that) at Sunny Meadows Nursing Facility, and mostly just waits for the inevitable, which, judging by the traffic noise outside his window, can’t come soon enough.

At eighty-four, Arthur has two functioning organs left: his brain and his sarcasm. He’s allergic to optimism and deeply suspicious of anyone who uses the word journey to describe their life. He grumbles at everything from craft hour to the nursing home’s eternally cold soup, and somehow, this makes him the moral center of the building. In a place where most people have forgotten what day it is, Arthur remembers exactly what’s wrong with all of them.

David Miller didn’t expect to be drawn into Arthur’s orbit. Visiting his mother, Margaret, should have been routine, quiet, uneventful. Instead, he finds himself swept into a world of sarcasm, stubborn wisdom, and unexpected camaraderie. Through shared meals, reluctant lessons, and countless bowls of cold soup, David begins to see life—and himself—through Arthur’s uncompromising eyes.

Suddenly, Arthur is light-years away. He's on the star cruiseship The Great Beyond, at a bar made of pure light, staring into the cosmic, multi-faceted eyes of Iris, the exquisitely beautiful, plum-skinned alien bartender. Iris, who Arthur calls Star-Eyes, listens to his terrestrial woes with the profound, fatalistic resignation of a creature who knows all moments exist simultaneously. She serves him steaming drinks as he jumps between a nursing home obsessed with arts and crafts, and planets made of grinding gears and silent, glowing networks.

Back on Earth, alongside Margaret, the gentle bridge between them, and Nurse Kelly, the cheerful foil to Arthur’s gloom, David navigates grief, nostalgia, and the peculiar humor of old age. From arguments about technology and hobbies to reflections on memory, mortality, and the absurdities of modern life, Conversations Over Cold Soup is a wry, tender story about the people who teach us how to live—even when they do it grumbling all the way.

And then, one day, a chair at the lunch table is empty. The jokes stop, but their echo doesn’t. The lessons—disguised as complaints, muttered under breaths, hidden in the rhythm of spoons tapping trays—linger. Arthur’s cynicism transforms, almost imperceptibly, into something dangerously close to grace. David begins to suspect that the universe is not cruel so much as bored—and that love, like soup, is best served imperfect.

Heartfelt, hilarious, and achingly human, this novel reminds us that life’s greatest lessons sometimes come from the crankiest voices—and that even the coldest soup can carry warmth if shared with the right company.

Coming 2026