Bringing out the Dead

Rating:
Summary: highly recommended
Review: An excellent book that became an excellent movie. I recommend this to every paramedic student I mentor. Connelly provides a look into the abyss that many of us in EMS have seen more than once.

Rating:
Summary: psychotic paramedics in hell...
Review: Bringing Out The Dead is the sort of book I really wanted to enjoy. Firstly, it has won accolades as a great first novel (by Joe Connelly). Even a film has been made based on the story. And judging by the other amazon.com reviewers, the style of the book is supposedly Chuck 'Fight Club' Palahniuk-esque; I am a fan of Chuck Palahniuk. Was I disappointed? Er.., yes.

Bringing Out The Dead is, as one understands by reading the dust jacket, the story of a burned out ambulance driver in a seedy section of Manhatten. It is indeed written in the first person, and has the punchy/neurotic feel of Fight Club and Survivor (both by Palahniuk). However unlike these (very good) novels Bringing Out the Dead has no clever message or plot twists, let alone any humour. The reader is plunged on to a rollercoaster of absolutely horrific ambulance rides with paramedics who should be institutionalized. However judging by the frightening patients they treat in endless succession one can understand why they've turned into monsters. I pray such a story doesn't remotely portray reality. While individual vignettes within the novel are indeed interesting, the overall feel of the book is one endless succession of horror. In the end I didn't understand the point of it all.

Having said this, Bringing Out The Dead isn't a bad novel - indeed, it is an impressive first novel. The characterizations are very interesting, and there are elements of brilliance in between the repetitive scenes of horror. Perhaps Joe Connelly can produce a fine novel if he had better focus, and tried to deliver some meaning to words.

Bottom line: a ghoulish reading experience which both fascinates and horrifies, yet it ultimately bored this reader. A near miss.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Every once in a while, a book comes along that will live in your head forever. This is one of them.

Joe Connelly, like a deranged circus ringmaster, trots out one insanity after another and makes them dance. There's Noel, the suicidal/obsessive-compulsive who is delighted at the prospect of being killed in the hospital. There's the unidentified woman who calls 911 for her husband's cardiac arrest, when in reality, the man just needed an extended amount of time on the john. And there's Mr. Oh, one of Our Lady of Mercy's "regulars", who's simply drunk and hungry more often then not.

But make no mistake, the medics are insane too. That's the point, EVERYONE is insane. There's Tom, who would just as soon beat someone up as take them to the hospital. There's Marcus, the born-again Christian who will only do three jobs a night. There's Larry, who's grossly overweight and takes pictures of particularly gruesome scenes for his "DOA scrapbook." And there's Our Hero, Frank Pierce, who may or may not be hallucinating, sometimes comes to work drunk, and gets into arguments with his boss because his boss won't fire him.

Frank is a man who has given up everything for his job because he genuinely loves it. More than once he calls saving lives the greatest thing he will ever do, and we believe him. It is only recently, when the job stops giving him what he needs and he finds that he has little more to give back, that the rush has started to fade. And fade it does, right out of existence.

Frank talks about his job much as frequent targets of domestic abuse talk about their spouses; lovingly, but with more than a touch of fear, anger, and weariness. In fact, at it's core, "Bringing Out the Dead" is more about weariness than anything else. What happens when people completely forget themselves to help others, and how long, in reality, that can last.

In the end, we realize that there is a vast difference between happiness and simple peace, and we hope that, despite the scars, Frank can find his own version of peace.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: Heartbreaking, enthralling, intelligent, uplifting and funny. I hope Mr Connelly continues writing, his poetry just burns through the pages. I didn't want to let these characters go. Genius.

Rating:
Summary: Great book - great movie
Review: I believe I read this book just before seeing the movie starring Nicholas Cage and John Goodman. At the time, I was studying to become a paramedic, so the topic interested me.

I loved this book, and read it in one sitting. I know paramedics are constantly asked, "What's the worst thing you've ever seen?" and my favorite line in the book is Frank's response to that question, "Lima beans on a pizza."

I think that just about sums it up. Not everyone will love this book, but I sure enjoyed it.

Two defibrillators up!

Rating:
Summary: Impressive, but not great
Review: I liked Joe Connelly's novel, "Bringing Out the Dead," better than the movie (I read the book first). The movie follows the book pretty well, while leaving out many things, as movies must do (there's a significant amount of time spent in the book talking about the narrator's ex-wife).

Connelly creates a gritty, realistic atmosphere surrounding his NYC ambulance driver job. At times there are hints of Chuck Palahniuk, but Connelly has a ways to go before reaching that level. The main character is well-developed, and easy to sympathize with, despite experiencing a problem that most of us will never face; failing to save the lives of his patients night after night. Therein lies the triumph of this novel. I feel like I now know exactly what it's like to be a nightshift ambulance driver.

Rating:
Summary: Pour the grave juice, quitting time's near...
Review: Joe Connelly's first novel is powerful stuff, definitely not for the faint of heart or those predisposed to depression. Frank Pierce is a downtrodden EMS medic whose world is rocked by the ghost of a girl he helped to kill and the memory of his ex-wife, who couldn't handle the afterburn. Connelly's prose is red-hot - he doesn't so much write as he does attack the beast - it leaps at your spine and pulverizes it, like being inside of a jet engine. He gets in and gets out, spinning EMS shop talk that's all red meat and arteries bursting wide open and grey matter boiling in flame. A former New York City medic, Connelly knows of what he speaks, and doesn't sugarcoat any facet of Frank's world, which seems to begin and end with the bottle as he tries to drink away the trail of broken bodies his occupation brings to his doorstep. By no means is "Bringing Out The Dead" the feel-good novel of the year, but watch for Connelly. He's got the goods, the bads, and plenty of the uglies.

Rating:
Summary: Pour the grave juice, quitting time's near...
Review: Joe Connelly's first novel is powerful stuff, definitely not for the faint of heart or those predisposed to depression. Frank Pierce is a downtrodden EMS medic whose world is rocked by the ghost of a girl he helped to kill and the memory of his ex-wife, who couldn't handle the afterburn. Connelly's prose is red-hot - he doesn't so much write as he does attack the beast - it leaps at your spine and pulverizes it, like being inside of a jet engine. He gets in and gets out, spinning EMS shop talk that's all red meat and arteries bursting wide open and grey matter boiling in flame. A former New York City medic, Connelly knows of what he speaks, and doesn't sugarcoat any facet of Frank's world, which seems to begin and end with the bottle as he tries to drink away the trail of broken bodies his occupation brings to his doorstep. By no means is "Bringing Out The Dead" the feel-good novel of the year, but watch for Connelly. He's got the goods, the bads, and plenty of the uglies.

Rating:
Summary: As far as page turners go, this right up there.
Review: Joe Connolly has produced a wonderfully vivid world of the medic. The stresses, strains, hallucinations and all are blended together with a real sense of human struggle. Connolly takes the reader on a journey through the hell of his schedule and of the individuals that make up his occupation of trauma. And there is never a dull moment. Like real life. Just as Frank Pierce cannot stop for breath, so the reader is hurried along also. This is a fantastic book and one which I urge people to read. If you don't, you simply miss out.

Rating:
Summary: Not for the faint of heart
Review: What can you say about a book that depresses us so ably?

Bringing Out the Dead is a look at a day in the life of Frank Pierce, an EMS medic in the famously wicked Hell's Kitchen (home to the brooding comic book character Daredevil, if anyone needs a random reference).

As Pierce travels between a never-ending series of horrific scenes, we realize that he is a character for whom the quiet moments of thought are even more terrifying than the prospect of trying to save the life of a horribly wounded patient. Pierce has problems, both at home and on the job, and the pressure of the profession is grating on him like sandpaper. Yet that same pressure keeps him moving, and propels him from place to place without having to face up to the problems he sees.

The writing in this book is colorful and uber-realistic, bringing us into very close contact with the mostly-miserable patients who wind up in Frank's ambulance. The character descriptions are very strong, and the ear for language is even stronger. While some of the cases relate to each other in ways that might not seem entirely believable, the plot is messy and random enough that we can swallow it without sacrificing our sense that this events are actually happening in our world.

I have a hard time recommending this book, because it really affected me emotionally. This is a tribute to the mastery of language of the author. The bleak outlook on life is so compelling that you have to be ready to be depressed by the story. Comfort food it ain't, but it is a very absorbing tale, and a fairly quick read to boot. If you think that you might like to shadow an overwhelmed EMS in a dark urban setting in real life for a day, pick it up. But if you think that that experience would be more harmful than educational, leave it alone.