No One Left Alone
A Story of How Community Helps Us Heal
by Liz Walker
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Pub Date Apr 08 2025 | Archive Date Not set
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Description
"Walker provides a cure for our ‘era of mass grief’ in a very readable, empathetic narrative." —BOOKLIST
"Inspiring, thoughtful, and beautiful." --BRYAN STEVENSON
"A tender reminder and spacious invitation." -- FATHER GREGORY BOYLE
"Liz Walker accomplishes a difficult literary and theological balance with stunning clarity." --OTIS MOSS III
An extraordinary account of a Black church that decided to give neighbors a space to share their grief, No One Left Alone provides a blueprint premised on a simple truth: the wounded heal best together.
As the first Black woman to anchor the Boston-area evening news, Liz Walker found herself in an industry that defined the neighborhood of Roxbury largely by violence. But when she became a pastor there, Walker grew close to households marked not only by trauma but by courage--including the family of Cory Johnson, a young father who was murdered. In the wake of their worst nightmare, the family reached out for help.
As Walker's congregation invited neighbors to gather, they created soft spaces for others' grief to land. There, in the stories told, the meals shared, the tears shed, and the silences kept, people found a space to receive their sorrow. Out of this ministry grew a grassroots trauma-healing program, one now being replicated across the country.
Through this groundbreaking book, begin to imagine what story-sharing groups might look like in your context. Face the disparity of grief that comes from racism and systemic inequality, and learn to confront legacies of harm. Discover the healing power of listening, as well as the art and skills of accompanying someone in pain. Further, grasp how caregivers, pastors, counselors, and other healers--many with their own wounds--can benefit from soft spaces too.
Marked by history and surrounded by violence and loneliness, we all long for healing. In the tradition of esteemed writers like Bryan Stevenson and Cole Arthur Riley, Walker writes about how community helps us transfigure trauma. There is nothing dramatic about listening to someone's story or sharing our own. But there is mystery here, and sacredness. No one has to be left alone.
Advance Praise
"Sharing her knowledge and experiences graciously, with no strings attached, Walker provides a cure for our "era of mass grief" in a very readable, empathetic narrative."
—Booklist
"A compelling community leader’s memoir that promotes healing through attentiveness to those experiencing trauma."
—Foreword Reviews
“No One Left Alone is an inspiring, thoughtful, and beautiful account of how ‘making a way out of no way’ among those too often wounded by injustice can create precisely the kind of hope and healing we need right now.”
—Bryan Stevenson, New York Times bestselling author of Just Mercy
“My good friend Rev. Liz Walker has written a beautiful book about the power of kindness, availability, and love when they are turned loose in a loving community where the only agenda is love and acceptance. She invites us all into the deep end of community from the shallow end of despair and hopelessness. I could not commend this book more enthusiastically.”
—Bob Goff, New York Times bestselling author of Love Does; Everybody, Always; Dream Big; and Undistracted
“It is not often that an author is able to capture the beauty and complexity of spiritual resilience betrothed to the bruising weight of trauma and grief. Minister and storyteller Liz Walker accomplishes this difficult literary and theological balance with stunning clarity.”
—Otis Moss III, senior pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ and author of Dancing in the Darkness
“In this book Walker graciously shares the wisdom that comes from her practice of compassionate leadership. I could sing Liz’s praises all night and all day! She has turned subjects that are intended to break our hearts into a story of inspiration.”
—Becca Stevens, Episcopal priest, author, social entrepreneur, and founder of Thistle Farms
“Walker takes the unsolved murder of a young Black man in Boston as an example of a structural issue: the indifference of the criminal justice system to people of color. What’s different about Walker’s journey is what is missing in so much of the reporting: a healing program.”
—Charlayne Hunter Gault, civil rights activist and journalist
“In so many ways America needs healing. Liz Walker and the Cory Johnson Program bring that work to where it matters most—where it touches people. Recognizing the impact of violence, let alone chronic neglect and despair, on members of the community is critical to healing the country and the larger world.”
—Deval Patrick, former governor of Massachusetts
“No One Left Alone is a local story that resonates across neighborhoods struggling to come to terms with violence and its long-lasting effects. Walker offers a compelling and theologically powerful testimony to how God’s abiding presence can become visible in hard places. Blending stories with current research, No One Left Alone is Walker’s call-and-response to confronting collective trauma.”
—Shelly Rambo, theology professor and author of Spirit and Trauma
“No One Left Alone is brilliant, profound, moving, and inspirational: a masterpiece that wrestles honestly with the trauma, violence, racism, and isolation of our struggling world. It emerges from the crucible of pain and grief in Boston’s Roxbury community and the long cascade of violence that culminated in the murder of Cory Johnson. His grieving family, a wounded community, and a loving pastor have painstakingly created a soft space where all are accepted, stories shared, and healing made possible.”
—Dr. Jim O’Connell, founder and director of Boston Health Care for the Homeless, featured in Rough Sleepers by Tracy Kidder
“The Rev. Liz Walker is a holy and remarkable spirit. Her testament about a healing communal wonder amid the wound of a tragic family loss is an exquisite witness to love having the last word. Through it all, no matter what.”
—Dr. Kirk Byron Jones, author of Soul Flow: Living in the Stream of Your Spiritual Power
“Rev. Liz Walker’s terrific No One Left Alone demonstrates beautifully how mental health can and indeed should be a prominent part of our Christian tradition—an expression of the sacrificial, unconditional love that sees the image of God in every human being. She shows how church can be a refuge, a place where faith is honored, not ignored, and used to help people heal.”
—John Finley, co-founder and head of Boston’s Epiphany School
Marketing Plan
National and online publicity campaign targeting news media, Black media, Christian media, and those interested in activist and social justice stories
Trade and consumer advertising
Social media and digital campaign targeting progressive readers, Black readers and Black churchgoers, Christians and SBNRs, and helping professionals
Events and speaking opportunities based on the "Can We Talk" programming
Seasonal promotion opportunities including Black History Month
Available Editions
EDITION | Other Format |
ISBN | 9781506496849 |
PRICE | $28.99 (USD) |
PAGES | 240 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews

This book has so much to offer in terms of insight into the darkest places of human experience...and the brightest. It is an invitation to something that most of our souls are longing for, something that just touches that place inside of us that has had trouble believing that goodness such as these moments, these connections, actually exists. That healing might actually be possible (even if we know we will never be whole again).
I found so much in this book that made sense to my heart, so much that I was connecting with - through my own experience and through my work as a chaplain. That is, until the author continually reminded me that...she wasn't talking to me. Whatever connection I might be feeling seemed to be written off as coincidental, one of those things that I think I understand as a human being created in the image of God but that the author wants to always draw a line between and say that I cannot possibly understand them as a WHITE human being created in the image of God. At the very moment that the book starts really connecting with your soul, you're reminded that...she's not really talking to you. At least, not to me. Even when she does mention "multicultural" participation, she does so in a way that indicates that the white folk in attendance are there because they have a certain sympathy for the Black experience and are comfortable to just sit and listen and not pretend that they can truly connect.
On one hand, I get it. I have been blessed in my life by the Black church, which I confess does carry a different vibe to it. I have a certain human connection and comfort around the Black community that I don't feel in more majority spaces and it's because there's just something different about the vibe. There's just something about "human" that the Black community does so well. At the same time, constantly being reminded that I will never understand this community feels like being constantly written out. Diminished. Told my experiences, even my broken experiences, cannot come close to ever relating because I just don't - no, I can't - understand. And yet, my soul cries something different. So books like this always introduce for me a tension...that tearing between what my human soul knows so intimately, so painfully, and what the world, reflecting on its own brokenness, says I cannot possibly know.
Still, I will take the connections in my heartstrings from this book and continue to wrestle with the rest and hope that one day, authors with the Black spirit will broaden their voice to share with more of us who are out here just as desperately as they are, looking for a way in.