Bringing Out the Dead - Softcover

Schrader, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571204899 ISBN 13: 9780571204892

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 2000

Synopsis

The author of Taxi Driver returns to the darkest streets of New York City for another story of lost souls. It is the early 1990s: Frank Pierce is an EMS paramedic, driving an ambulance through the city's darkest streets on the 'graveyard shift'. Surrounded by the injured and the dying, Frank is dwelling in an urban night-world, and crumbling under the accumulated weight of too many years spent saving - and losing - lives. Bringing Out the Dead is the account of fifty-six hours in Frank's life - two days and three nights on the job - as, hungering for redemption, he reaches the very brink of spiritual collapse. Paul Schrader's fourth collaboration with director Martin Scorsese continues their fascinated exploration of the lives of drifting, soulful, lonely characters.

About this title

Review:

For nearly a decade author Joe Connelly rushed from emergency to emergency as a paramedic in the Hell's Kitchen area of New York City. This is the novel he wrote to purge, perhaps redeem, the torment of his experiences in the trenches with the dying and the barely living. Connelly seems to be a born writer, for this first novel makes brilliant use of unflinching realism, dark and brittle humour, a faint whiff of the supernatural and, above all, the poignancy of a human soul that chooses slow self-destruction rather than shutting itself off to the suffering of others. As Patrick McGrath-- another writer of dark literary fiction--writes, "The author's vision is both bleak and compassionate; his control of his explosive material is masterly. This is strong stuff, full of heart, engaging, harrowing, and real." You won't be able to let this one out of your sight until you've finished reading it, and it will linger long after you've put it down. --Fiona Webster

Review:

Acclaim for the film: "An intense, volatile film full of sorrow and wild, mordant humor." --Janet Maslin, "The New York"

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0571204899
• ISBN 13: 9780571204892
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128