?Knockdown, Spectacular First Novel? screams GQ. I agree.
This is indeed a brilliant effort by first time novelist Joe Connelly. This 1998 novel may not have blazed the New York Times best-sellers list, neither is Connelly a household name, but for sheer brilliance this novel brings out comparisons with humongous classics like ?Catcher in the Rye? and ?Catch 22?.
Connelly worked for nine years as a medic in New York City, where he was born and still lives. This work of fiction was inspired and maybe even mirrored his life. ?Bringing out the Dead? is about death, despair, ghosts and yet ultimately about human life and its place in the scheme of things. Though we are exposed to glorious visions of paramedics saving lives through media such as serials and the six o?clock news, we are never witness to the sad side.
We never accompany them on scores of calls where they see junkies lying overdosed and dead, bloated bodies, cardiac arrests that refuse to survive, asthmatics who insist on taking their last labored breath in their arms. There is so much death and despair that they have to bear witness to, so much pain that they have to watch being inflicted. This is bound to affect their lives and bound to cause grievous mental wounds. This novel tells us this side of the story.
It uses its protagonist Frank Pierce to take us through the late stages of an all-night medic?s career. The book introduces you to Frank as a man who has already lost everything to his job, his wife has left, and he has become an alcoholic and an insomniac. Ghosts from his previous failures haunt him and he has begun the spiral towards death and despair himself. It is a first person narration and Frank takes you through his innermost thoughts and desires.
His wants are so simple and his hope so transparent and naïve, that your heart breaks each time he is denied a reprieve. We are there to witness the excitement and dread of his calls; the mad humor that keeps the medics afloat; the memories distant and recent, through which Frank reminds himself why he became a medic and tries, in vain, to convince himself to give it up. And we are with him as he faces his newest ghost: the resurrected patient, whose demands to be released into death might be the most sensible thing Frank has heard in months, if only he would listen.
An excerpt from the book:
I was once called to the Plaza Hotel for an ambassador from a very small oil-rich country.He complained of crushing chest pain. I told him we?d take him to Our Lady of Mercy. Is it a good hospital? He asked, a question I preferred not to answer. I gave him some nitroglycerin and morphine, which eased the pain some, and we took him in and slid him into slot one in the treatment room and hooked him up to Misery?s machines.
I noticed that the curtain between slot one and slot two was open and on the stretcher in slot two was a cardiac arrest I had brought in hours before, who had been pronounced dead and was waiting to be bagged and taken down to the morgue. I noticed, too, that the dead man bore a striking resemblance to the ambassador. The ambassador observed this also. ?Is it me?? he cried. ?Is it me?? That question, as well, I preferred not to answer.
Though this is Connelly?s first effort it does not seem in anyway rough around the edges. In fact, his prose is so stylized that you can think he?s being doing this for a lifetime. He uses a method of writing which will be familiar to those who have read and re-read ?Catcher in the Rye?, he hardly takes a breath during sentences. They scream past you at break neck speed and you can hardly wait to run your eyes on them fast enough.
However unlike ?Catcher?? Connelly uses a curious ?fits and starts? style of narration. Each chapter is an event in itself, he does not let you leave Frank?s side for a moment and he makes you undergo the same agony that Frank goes through. At the end of each chapter there is a reprieve and calm. However, you just have to turn the page, and there you are, embroiled in a despairing situation all over again.
The book consumes you while you read it and you think about it when you keep it down for a breather. It is a good story, well told. It?s obviously not a nice story or a happy story. It is more or less a truthful story. One where there is transparency in the writing and the reading. It is an absorbing read and must be attempted once. If you however prefer stories where characters are ideal and moralistic, then you will not like this book. If you like a slow paced, rhythmic novel, then you will not like this book. However, if ?Catch-22? is your bible and ?Catcher in the Rye? leaves you spellbound, don?t dare miss this book. It?s brilliant.
The book may not be very readily available. I got it at a second hand book hawker at Churchgate. It is a Warner Books publication and actually was made into a movie of the same title by Paramount, directed by Martin Scorsese and Nicholas Cage in the lead role.
I have seen the movie too and it is as brilliant as the book, a great watch, but another review. Hope you survived this one.
Thanks a lot to everyone who sent me birthday greetings, me was touched. Do rate and comment, that always feels great.