Permission to Remain

By Roman Van de Lay

Andrew Hale built his life on discipline, reliability, and control.
A respected physician trusted by coworkers and patients alike, Andrew has spent years believing he is the kind of man who handles pressure better than everyone else. Long hours, emotional exhaustion, impossible expectations-he carries them all without complaint. The people around him depend on that certainty.
Then one ordinary night destroys everything.
After leaving a coworker celebration, Andrew convinces himself he is still capable of driving home. Minutes later, a devastating crash kills three people-a husband, a wife, and their young daughter-while leaving a four-year-old child orphaned.
Convicted of DUI manslaughter and sentenced to Angola State Penitentiary, Andrew enters a brutal world where his education, reputation, and former career no longer matter. Stripped of his medical license and reduced to inmate labor inside the prison infirmary, he is warned immediately: he is not a doctor there.
As guilt, humiliation, violence, and institutional survival slowly dismantle the person he believed himself to be, Andrew is forced to confront a truth far more painful than incarceration itself: being respected, competent, and trusted never made him immune to becoming the man responsible for destroying other lives.
Permission to Remain is a gritty, emotionally grounded literary drama about accountability, identity, consequence, and the fragile stories people tell themselves to avoid recognizing when they have crossed a line they can never uncross.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GPL9FF58
• ISBN13: 9798249213848
• Release Date: February 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 492 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"