Black Flies

Gritty, bleak, seemingly hyperrealistic (I don't know enough about the subject to be sure.) This story of an aspiring med student who decides to be a paramedic in 1990's Harlem after he does not get into med school on the first try is very effective. The city eats away at his humanity every day, and there is an active battle between good and evil. Sometimes the battle is a little too on the nose. There are characters that are close to cartoons of the Devil and the Angel on Ollie's shoulders. There is nothing here that sings; the prose feels workmanlike, but workmanlike at a high level, not art but good craft. It ends with a very faint whiff of redemption, the reader is not going to come away from this with any sense of faith in show more humankind. I think the author accomplished exactly what he wanted to accomplish, and that impresses the heck out of me. It reads like a war novel but it is set where I live and where our wars are undeclared by Act of Congress.

Thanks to Left Coast Justin for not only recommending this book, but for actually sending me his copy. I am glad I read this one. You are the best of reading friends, Justin! Next time you visit I will take you to Harlem so you can see how bougie the area described here has become. I laughed when they used the words Riverside Park to indicate an end times sense of decay and desolation. It is now a place I mostly can't afford to live. show less

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 show more left behind. Beautiful, insightful, unforgettable - I really loved this book. show less

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 show more 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? show less

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 show more 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. show less

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.

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 show more 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. show less

For such a short read this book packs a powerful punch. In Black Flies author Shannon Burke, a former paramedic who worked in Harlem, gives an honest and grim portrait of what Harlem paramedics encounter on a daily basis. It is a dark novel filled with disturbing events of death, gunshot victims, drug addicts and other gruesome things paramedics face while working in a crime-filled, poverty-ridden neighborhood. The book follows Ollie Cross during his first year as a medic and chronicles his daily struggle with the things he sees while treating patients, how he copes, and how he finds that difficult balance between work and his personal life.

Black Flies is a commanding, seemingly true-to-life look into a world that not many people show more witness. The vivid accounts of roach-invested tenements and people left destitute in the worst and most hopeless of conditions serve as a reminder to appreciate the things you have in your life. The author is formidable and graphic in his descriptions, even grisly at times, but if you can handle the severity I highly recommend reading this book. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. People who work in the medical field or who have an interest in medicine may find this particularly interesting and/or informative, if not disturbing. show less