Black Flies Book

Although it's still January, I believe I may have just read the best book I'll read this year, or at least one of the top three.

This is a very specific story that addresses much bigger aspects of human nature. It's told in a very unconventional way, and is essentially plotless. That such a story has such an impact and says so much is a testament to Mr. Burke's writing skill. Who is this guy, and why have I never heard of him until now?

This novel, which is so vivid that I can only assume most of it was based on the author's real experience as an NYC paramedic for five years, could serve as a textbook for "show, don't tell." The real subjects of the book are simply not discussed. Why? Because it's a book about men, and men simply don't talk about this stuff. We don't talk about the uplifting effects of friendship or the way failure makes us behave badly, or how altruism makes us feel good and how sometimes being abusive also makes us feel good, until it starts feeling like failure. It just isn't discussed. But among men who work in highly consequential situations, who form tight, impenetrable teams, these unspoken subjects have a tendency to spill sideways out of the group and into the world at large, and the world at large cannot afford to ignore them.

We spend eleven months with the narrator, riding in an ambulance in Harlem. He's a rookie, doesn't know the ropes, and is thus strongly influenced by personalities both benevolent and malign. Good things happen, bad things happen, every day is generally the same but specifically different. Without calling attention to it, enough specifics pile up to eventually form into something resembling a plot, though it's difficult, in retrospect, to say exactly what the plot was. Every day, they get through the day. Every morning, they start over. Some can endure it and some can't.

Page by page, this is thrilling and appalling in equal measure. At the end, there's some very big ideas about the nature of altruism, the nature of desperate people, the awful lives of slum dwellers, how men bond and support one another and the price paid for weakness. The shortness of this book increases rather than diminishes its impact.

I'll be thinking about this one for a long time.

I was led to this book by an excellent review from Michelle; take her warnings seriously if you intend to read this.