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Synopsis
Drawing on a decade of his own experiences as a paramedic on the streets of New York City, Joe Connelly vividly portrays the conflicted, frenetic existence of an EMS medic, in his gritty and powerful debut novel, Bringing Out the Dead.
Frank Pierce works the graveyard shift in Hell's Kitchen, once known as the toughest neighborhood in Manhattan, now a melting pot of old-timers, yuppies, and down-and-outers, and the calls he responds to are a mix of "homicides, suicides, overdoses, and all the other victims, innocent or not." In the doorways and alleys of the neighborhood, Frank sees the ghosts of cases past, those still "gasping at lives so abruptly taken away." The one particular case that haunts Frank's sleeping and waking moments is that of a young asthmatic woman named Rose. Her image appears around every corner, in a yellow rain slicker crumpled on the pavement.
As Frank struggles through two life-altering days on the job, he takes the reader along for the ride, offering unique insight into one of the world's most harrowing, and at times rewarding, professions. Reading the taut, unflinching narrative of this powerful novel is something akin to an adrenaline shot, and it is an experience not soon forgotten.
New York Times Book Review
[A] stunning first novel....vigorous rhythms.