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by: Shannon Burke  List Price: $14.95 Amazon.com's Price: $10.17 You Save: $4.78 (32%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 813.6 EAN: 9781593761912 ISBN: 1593761910 Label: Soft Skull Press Manufacturer: Soft Skull Press Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 192 Publication Date: May 21, 2008 Publisher: Soft Skull Press Studio: Soft Skull Press Related Items:
Editorial Review: Product Description: Novelist Shannon Burke earned stunning reviews for his debut book, Safelight, and now he returns with the same minimalist intensity in this arresting follow-up. Black Flies is the story of paramedic Ollie Cross and his first year on the job in mid-'90s New York. It is a ground's eye view of life on the streets: the shoot-outs, the bad cops, unhinged medics, the hopeless patients, the dark humor in bizarre circumstances, and one medic's struggle to balance his desire to help against his own 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. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Average readI found this to be an average read, slow at times. Not a pick of mine for book of the year, but if you are in the health field you will most likely relate to many of the plot lines and patient traumas. Rating:  - Like so Many Black FliesShannon Burke's Black Flies: A Novel 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 ... Read More Rating: - a transformative readThis book was riveting not only for the scenes, which made me feel that I understood what it was like to be a Harlem medic, but also for the insights into these individuals and their grappling with what it means to be manly. I'm a woman, but Burke helped me understand the rage, terror, sublimation and love that inspired very different reactions in the characters. While there are some harrowing scenes, and some of the medics do seem to have lost their humanity, I never felt the violence ... Read More Rating: - Expected much moreFor all the accolades this book received I just expected so much more. I did not connect to any of the characters really. The tragic event that befalls Collie's partner - - saw it coming a mile away. Conveniently enough, I believe Collie "finds his way" just in time enough for the book to conclude about 10 pages from the end. What I did gain from the book is a whole new appreciation for the medical care givers in the streets. I always knew topically that it had to be a rough job. Not ... Read More Rating: - who saves the medics? 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 ... Read More 
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