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    Black Flies: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Black Flies: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Black Flies: A Novel
    Ebook217 pages1 hour

    Black Flies: A Novel

    By Shannon Burke

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    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
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateMar 1, 2009
    ISBN9781593762544
    Unavailable
    Black Flies: A Novel
    Author

    Shannon Burke

    Shannon Burke is an experienced author whose novels focus on the life of paramedics in Harlem. Born in Illinois, he went to college at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. He went on to work as a paramedic for the New York City Fire Department. He currently resides with his wife and two sons in Knoxville, Tennessee.

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    Reviews for Black Flies

    3.5/5

    6 ratings10 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Though depicted as a novel, Black Flies is concise enough for a perfect novella. Or, as it expounds upon the experiences of a paramedic in Harlem, it is also appropriate to label the work as a series of vignettes (albeit with a clear storyline). Whatever its categorization, Black Flies is a frightening work that conveys the both the physical and psychological hardship of being a paramedic. Indeed, it's not just the suffering that medics are trained to alleviate, it is a story that ponders about who responds to the first responders.The story revolves around Ollie Cross, newly assigned to the 18th precinct. Cross voluntarily selects the 18th to get hardcore paramedic experience while preparing to pass the MCATs he desperately needs for acceptance into medschool. The experience he receives can never be taught from any textbook.The horror of this story is hammered from two angles. The first, more obvious horror is the death and depravity paramedics experience every single day. Rotting corpses, horrific wounds, constant exposure to disease, and the grotesque, vehement disdain, and dangerous behavior exhibited by the victims they're supposed to protect. The other horror is the subsequent disdain, mounting disregard and grotesque behavior that paramedics can subsequently exhibit toward their victims, a gradual hardening to the grittiness and incessant malaise to which they're exposed. This story is not merely the devolution of Cross, but the way he responds to being partnered with several medics of differing moral zephyrs. There's the stoic, the maniac, the ultimate altruist; they have seen it all, and all are resigned to the degeneration of the job.Burke explores the depths to which paramedics, affected by the stress, often decide who lives or dies. He also focuses on the irony of those expertly trained to save life are often already dead from within. Overall, the book details the darker aspects of being a paramedic as well as state of the human condition through a good story. Fascinating read.
    • 5/5
      A former paramedic in Harlem, Burke isn't the strongest writer, academically speaking. But he writes with an incredibly strong voice, stronger than many novelists who are technically better writers. Though categorized as a novel, Burke writes so graphically, drawing (I assume) from his own experiences, that I had to keep reminding myself it was fiction. An outstanding book.
    • 3/5
      It's engrossing and easy reading, but seems almost like the screenplay for TV series. It all seems a bit too familiar. The most interesting aspect is the psychological transformation of the narrator has he becomes overwhelmed by the flawed humanity of the people he tries to help.
    • 4/5
      Shannon Burke once worked as a paramedic above 125th street in Harlem – it is this resume item that allows him to write this with such visceral, resonant reality. Watching Ollie’s 11-month descent from med school-bound rookie to world-weary, shattered battlefield medic is swift & shocking, but seeing him decide whether to pull himself up off the street is even more arresting and profound. A surprisingly moving novel about the people who save our lives every day & are too often overlooked.
    • 4/5
      The memoir of a paramedic in Harlem, New York. A man trying to get into medical college decides to work as a paramedic and in order to get the most experience possible he works in Harlem. There he meets a lot of strange people, many of them working for the paramedics.It's an interesting account of one man's life at the front line of medicine and what being a paramedic can do to a person, how it can change them because in order to be able to cope with the tragedy and terror you have to become somewhat numb to it all.
    • 3/5
      It's about a kid slumming it as a paramedic in Harlem while he drags his feet on going to medical school. The reader sees emergency medicine in all its unprofessional, adrenaline-junky-riddled glory. Be prepared to read about "skells" about five hundred times. We know the protagonist won't go over to the dark side because he has an out, but we watch him flirt with it to become the kind of person who feels like more of a man, wiser and more authentic than his girlfriend's wimpy, med school friends.This book made me feel like a psycho while I was reading it. It's one of those books that inexorably torpedoes your mood. However, it asks good ethics questions and makes you want to punch the faces of your handful of underworked, whacker co-workers who are totally unprofessional, also talk excessively about "skells," and have seemingly no compassion for patients despite never getting shot at, not having to deal with junkies, and not routinely stumbling across decaying corpses on the job. I dunno, it was good?
    • 5/5
      A slim, minimalist little bite of a novel about paramedics in Harlem in the mid-nineties. The author draws on his own life experience in a book filled with scatter shot impressions - much the way you might imagine a day as a paramedic might be.The characters & the sense of place are clear & drawn with depth despite the relative brevity of the book. These people are real & you care about them & about what happens to them, around them, because of them. This book reminds me a bit of Bringing Out the Dead, both the book (by Joe Connelly) & the movie (Martin Scorcese), which I also really enjoyed. This is a book that offers no answers & many questions, but one that mostly takes you for an ambulance ride through parts of a city that have been left behind. Beautiful, insightful, unforgettable - I really loved this book.
    • 3/5
      Reality porn mixed with a coming-of-age tale. But really a lot better than that description makes it sound.
    • 5/5
      Black Flies by Shannon Burke is a masterpiece of characterization and plot. Burke, a former paramedic in Harlem, New York, weaves his disjointed plot through a series of in-depth characterizations and vivid event descriptions. He traces the steps rookie Ollie Cross takes as he tries to fit in with the Station 18 crew and still hold onto his dreams of medical school, and along the way he spirals out of control, only to emerge on the other side of a black hole with his first save and a sense of purpose.Ollie is green according to the other paramedics in his unit, simply because he wants to save lives and is gung-ho about his job. Rutkovsky is assigned as his partner, and he's a hard-nosed paramedic with a military past. LaFontaine is the department nut, while Verdis is his foil, interested in following the book and attending each patient with courtesy and care. Hatsuru is often in the background with a medical text in his hand while they await the next call or are on lunch break, and Marmol and Rivett round out the rest of the crew.Ollie joins the paramedic unit to gain experience while he studies for the MCATs, hoping to improve his scores and get into medical school. Amidst high crime rates, homelessness, and rampant drug use in the streets of Harlem, these medical professionals strive to save the lives of people some would say are unworthy of saving. This novel examines the struggle these paramedics face daily, regarding split-second decisions that could either save drug addicts who will only end up back on the street stung out or ending their misery by refusing to treat them. The moral imperative driving these paramedics to save lives is constantly tested on the streets.One fateful event in the novel pushes one of these paramedics over the edge, causing him to lose everything, while leaving the remaining paramedics to rationalize his decision and examine their own moral compass to determine whether that decision is something they all agree with or something that casts a shadow over all of their medical decisions and actions. In a way this decision becomes like so many black flies hovering over Ollie and the rest of the station.
    • 2/5
      A gritty, behind-the-scenes look at the life of rookie paramedic Ollie Cross in 90s Harlem. Fast read but didn't leave a lasting impression.