The night before David Roper’s heart surgery several years ago, he could not fall asleep.
The operation — a quintuple bypass at Massachusetts General Hospital — was scheduled for 6 a.m. His wife suggested they stay overnight in Boston so they wouldn’t have to rush in the morning. She fell asleep quickly.
Roper lay awake staring at the ceiling.
“I wasn’t really scared or terrified for myself,” he said. “But my writer brain started going.”
He thought: What if a man scheduled for heart surgery suddenly ran away?
That late-night question became the seed for a short story published in 2019 and, eventually, Roper’s newest novel — his sixth book — which he will discuss during a talk at the Boston Yacht Club on April 23.
When characters take over
The novel, “Rosie: One Young Girl’s Hope, One Man’s Last Chance, One Summer That Changes Everything” follows Arthur Brock, a 41-year-old Vietnam veteran living alone aboard a sailboat in Boston Harbor. Facing surgery for a congenital heart defect, Arthur makes an unexpected choice: Instead of entering the operating room, he sails to Maine to confront a promise he never kept.
Roper said the story evolved naturally once the characters began to take shape.
“That’s how stories get started,” he said. “You ask: Where would he go? Why would he do that? And pretty soon, the characters begin to drive the story.”
Arthur’s journey brings him to Hawkins Cove, a fictional coastal village in Maine, where he meets Rosie Brown — a sharp, energetic 10-year-old who helps her mother run a waterfront café and has quietly begun searching for someone to fill the role of the father she never had.
Rosie quickly became the emotional center of the book.
“She’s 10 going on 11,” Roper said. “She’s very bright, very resourceful, very thoughtful and kind, but she’s a real character.”
The unlikely friendship between Rosie and Arthur — a broken man who always wanted children — drives the story toward themes of redemption, forgiveness and second chances.
Inspired by family
Roper said Rosie was particularly fun to develop as a character. In fact, she was inspired in part by his 6-year-old granddaughter.
He even used a photograph of the real Rosie as a starting point for the book’s cover then leaned on AI to imagine what she might look like as a 10-year-old.
A long writing journey
Roper’s writing career spans decades and several genres.
His first book, published by Warner Books in the 1990s, was a nonfiction job-search guide. Over the years he has written essays, short stories and novels, including the popular “Watching for Mermaids.”
Alongside his own work, he has spent more than 40 years running a résumé-writing and career services business and coaching other authors through the publishing process.
“All of us have a story to tell,” he said.
Through his imprint, Roper Books, he helps writers decide whether to pursue traditional publishing or self-publishing — and guides them through the skills needed to bring a manuscript to life.
He has worked with several authors on books ranging from memoirs to personal stories.
A story born from survival
Looking back, Roper says it still feels strange that a moment before major surgery ultimately led to a novel.
“They stop your heart and connect it to a machine,” he said of the procedure. “I had this very strange, bizarrely cavalier attitude about the whole thing.”
The surgery went well, and today he says he’s healthy.
“Knock on wood,” he added.
“Rosie” is available at roperbooks.com.
