A novella by Sam Rodriguez · Founding Listeners open in November

All Who Rested Here

Name: All Who Rested Here
Author: Sam Rodriguez

A small carved letter in a church pew.Nine people who touched it across six decades without knowing why.None of them knew each other.All of them were held.

Founding Listeners from $5

Third row, left side

A pew in a small New England church. A mark nobody remembers making. Sixty years of Sunday mornings.

Chapter OneLouis, The Unfamiliar Known

Louis Mercer arrived at the church earlier than necessary.

He did that more often now.

Not because anyone expected him to unlock the building anymore. There were younger men with office keys and calendar access and enough energy to reorganize entire classrooms on a Tuesday night because someone had read an article about modern ministry environments.

Still, old habits remained.

And if he was honest, the quiet before everyone else arrived had become one of the few parts of Sunday morning that still felt entirely his.

The key resisted slightly before turning.

It always had.

The rest of Chapter One is in my voice, week one.

All Who Rested HereA Note Before

Every church has rooms that remember more than the people in them do.

Not mystically.

Simply because rooms outlast the people who pass through them, and because certain objects absorb the weight of what happens near them without being able to report it. Wood worn smooth by decades of hands. Windows painted shut during some forgotten renovation. Pews that creak in the same place they have always creaked.

This is a book about one such room.

And about the people who carried something into it.

And about what remains after they left.

None of them knew each other.

Most of them never knew they were not alone.

vii

Before it is a book

The book is finished. Before it goes to print, I am reading the first part aloud, one chapter a week, for the people who want to hear it first.

They are the Founding Listeners. Their names go in the book.

Some things just wait.

Chapter One

Read by the author, one chapter a week, released on Sunday mornings.

Join whenever you find this. Everything already released is waiting for you. You pay once.

viiA Note BeforeWeek one
OneLouisWeek one
The Unfamiliar Known
TwoEleanorWeek two
The First Sunday Back · 1989
FiveMarcusWeek three
The Man Who Came Back · 2012
SixMargaretListeners only
The Woman Everyone Needed · 1996

Three ways in

Your notes go into a private room on this site, not to an inbox, and they shape the edition that goes to print.

Founding Listener

^$5

Three chapters in my voice, one a week, plus Margaret for listeners only. The private Listening Room. Your name in the book.

Coming in November

Founding Reader

^$20

Everything a listener gets, and the complete Founding Edition ebook, all nine chapters, when it is ready.

Coming in November

First Edition

^$40

Everything a reader gets, and a signed, numbered copy of the published first edition, mailed to you.

Coming in November

Checkout is handled by Gumroad, and the chapters arrive in your Gumroad library, where they play on any device. Start at five and move up later; what you paid counts toward it. Already in? Enter the Listening Room.

Before you join

How do I listen?

When you join, Gumroad sends a receipt and puts the book in your Gumroad library. Each chapter appears there on its release morning and plays in any browser or in the free Gumroad app. You get an email when a new one arrives.

What if I join late?

You get everything already released, right away, and the rest as it goes out. Nobody pays twice.

What is the Listening Room?

A private page on this site where you leave notes on each chapter: the line that stayed with you, where your attention drifted, what you think connects the stories. Your Gumroad receipt carries the key that opens it. Nobody else sees what you write.

Will my name really be in the book?

Yes. Every Founding Listener who gives a name in the Listening Room is printed among the Founding Listeners. Leave it empty and you are not listed.

When do the ebook and print edition arrive?

When they are ready, and not before. Founding Readers and First Edition buyers hear first and get theirs before anyone else.

Can I start at five and move up later?

Yes. What you paid counts toward the Founding Reader or First Edition.

Is this a religious book?

It is set in a church and it takes faith seriously. It is literary fiction, not a sermon. You do not need to believe anything to sit in that pew.

A note from the author

I have spent more Sunday mornings in a sanctuary than anywhere else in my life, a good many of them as a boy watching the adults. You learn early that a congregation is a room full of people agreeing not to say certain things out loud. The hymns get sung. The bulletins get folded. Nobody announces the rest, and the building keeps it anyway.

This book is about that keeping, and about a grace that does its work without asking permission, sometimes without anyone noticing it was there.

I am reading it to you before it is printed because I want to hear what you hear.

Sam Rodriguez

Take a seat. Third row, left side.

Become a Founding Listener

All Who Rested Here

Contents

Three ways in

Before you join