Bringing Out The Dead - Softcover

Connelly, Joe

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0751527815 ISBN 13: 9780751527810

Publisher: Sphere, 1999

Synopsis

Frank Pierce is a very good paramedic. He is also burned-out, reeling from his recent marriage break up and from the theatre of death he sees on every shift. His colleagues are as tired as he is, but while they are all bored, desensitised and robotic it is only Frank who sees the ghosts of those he did not or could not save. One such lost patient is Burke, whose spirit accompanies Frank throughout the novel, and who may just stop him from really cracking under the weight of the mayhem and death.

This is a startlingly vivid novel of the life of a paramedic - the emergencies, the lives that are saved and those that are lost, the wise-cracking humour of the city streets and the casualty wards - and it is also a novel of redemption, written with haunting and powerful energy.

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

The writing is marked both by startling, inventive depictions and a searing succinctness ... knockdown, spectacular first novel. (GQ)

A stunning first novel ... searing and poignant narrative. (New York Times Book 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, AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW)

Written with a richness and a closeness to the world it describes that makes it a powerful achievement, (WASHINGTON POST)

About this edition

• Publisher: Sphere
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0751527815
• ISBN 13: 9780751527810
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352