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About Black Flies: A Novel
Product Description A “raw and fascinating” novel based on the author’s experiences as a New York City paramedic during the crack epidemic—”Burke is a poet of trauma” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Black Flies is the story of paramedic Ollie Cross and his first year on the job in mid-’90s Harlem. It is a ground’s eye view of life on the streets: the shootouts, the bad cops, the hopeless patients, the dark humor in bizarre circumstances, and one medic’s struggle to maintain his desire to help despite his growing callousness. It is the story of lives that hang in the balance, and of a single job with a misdiagnosed newborn that sends Cross and his partner into a life-changing struggle between good and evil. “Although Black Flies is a novel, it contains more reflections of lived experience than some memoirs. . . . Reading this arresting, confrontational book is like reading Dispatches, Michael Herr’s indelible account of his years as a reporter in Vietnam.” — The New York Times Book Review From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Gunshot wounds, crack pipes and rotting corpses abound in this raw and fascinating novel about Harlem paramedics in the mid-1990s, the second novel from former EMT Burke. Oliver Cross graduated from Northwestern as a middle-class do-gooder. But he and his partner, Rutkovsky, a jaded Vietnam veteran and one of the city's best medics, see enough massive trauma to put Cross on the fast track to deep disillusionment. Of the bizarre, tragic and often shocking emergencies encountered during Cross's rookie tenure, the crisis comes when he and Rutkovsky respond to a call from an abandoned building where a crack-addicted, HIV-positive mother has just given birth to a premature baby, and their handling of the mother and child—believed to be stillborn—will alter the course of both men's lives. Burke is a poet of trauma, and his expert, macabre portrayal takes its toll on the reader just as the job takes its toll on Cross. (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review "Burke's evocation of early 1990s New York is dead-on, as is the burnout and despair of paramedics who can't afford to understand or empathize with those they are tasked to treat. No wonder lines are crossed and consequences are enormous." -- Sarah Weinmann, "Picks of the Week" "Gunshot wounds, crack pipes and rotting corpses abound in this raw and fascinating novel about Harlem paramedics in the mid-1990s, the second novel from former EMT Burke . . . Burke is a poet of trauma, and his expert, macabre portrayal takes its toll on the reader just as the job takes its toll on Cross." -- Publishers Weekly (starred) "Although Black Flies is a novel, it contains more reflections of lived experience than some memoirs (particularly recent memoirs). Reading this arresting, confrontational book is like reading Dispatches, Michael Herr's indelible account of his years as a reporter in Vietnam." -- Liesl Schillinger, New York Times Book Review "Burke's evocation of early 1990s New York is dead-on, as is the burnout and despair of paramedics who can't afford to understand or empathize with those they are tasked to treat. No wonder lines are crossed and consequences are enormous." --Sarah Weinmann, "Picks of the Week" Review "Although Black Flies is a novel, it contains more reflections of lived experience than some memoirs (particularly recent memoirs). Reading this arresting, confrontational book is like reading Dispatches, Michael Herr's indelible account of his years as a reporter in Vietnam." Review "A gifted stylist, the author makes a thoughtful stab at showing what constant danger can do to an ambulance worker and to a neighborhood's inhabitants. He also knows when to step back to provocative effect, prompting readers to grapple with the horrors as if they were experiencing them firsthand." Review "Both raw and matter-of-fact, where the disturbing becomes the routine
