Stories were everything to Syl Jones, and he used them not only to make sense of this world but to dream new ones.

A provocative playwright, contrarian opinion columnist and evangelical pioneer in the field of narrative medicine — where doctors and nurses improve outcomes by understanding and treating the whole person, not just their isolated symptoms — Jones died Nov. 10 at Sholom Home West in St. Louis Park. He was 72.

He went into hospice after a catastrophic stroke on Aug. 27, 2020, a day when he was slated to teach doctors and nurses at Hennepin Healthcare. Jones led workshops and wrote plays to teach doctors to better know themselves as carriers of trauma and stress, and to better comprehend their patients.

To the public, he’s best known for his writings onstage and in newspapers including the Minnesota Star Tribune and the Minneapolis Spokesman-Recorder, where he wrote prickly opinion pieces on social, cultural and political topics for decades.

His plays championed underdogs and included “Black No More,” an adaptation of George Schuyler’s classic science fiction novel about an invention that turns Black people white, thereby eliminating the rationale for racism. The satire premiered in 1998 at the Guthrie Theater before traveling to Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.

But Jones’ most immediate impact might be in narrative medicine, where practices he started live on and for which he won a prestigious Bush Fellowship.

Jones is preceded in death by his parents and by siblings Angela Hutchinson and Terry Jones. He is survived by his children son McGraw Jones, of Hopkins, daughters Dresden Jones of New Hope, Channing Jones of Robbinsdale and Evan Jones of Austin, Texas. He is also survived by siblings Susan Mars of Aiken, S.C., Gail Lee and Michael Jones of Cincinnati, and four grandchildren.

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