Rating: 
Summary: Excellent
Review: This book is fast paced and never has a dull moment. You really have a feel for the main character in this novel.
Rating:
Summary: Can't find the words, but I'll try.
Review: Every once in a while, a book comes along that will live in your head forever. This is one of them.Joe Connelly, like a deranged circus ringmaster, trots out one insanity after another and makes them dance. There's Noel, the suicidal/obsessive-compulsive who is delighted at the prospect of being killed in the hospital. There's the unidentified woman who calls 911 for her husband's cardiac arrest, when in reality, the man just needed an extended amount of time on the john. And there's Mr. Oh, one of Our Lady of Mercy's "regulars", who's simply drunk and hungry more often then not. But make no mistake, the medics are insane too. That's the point, EVERYONE is insane. There's Tom, who would just as soon beat someone up as take them to the hospital. There's Marcus, the born-again Christian who will only do three jobs a night. There's Larry, who's grossly overweight and takes pictures of particularly gruesome scenes for his "DOA scrapbook." And there's Our Hero, Frank Pierce, who may or may not be hallucinating, sometimes comes to work drunk, and gets into arguments with his boss because his boss won't fire him. Frank is a man who has given up everything for his job because he genuinely loves it. More than once he calls saving lives the greatest thing he will ever do, and we believe him. It is only recently, when the job stops giving him what he needs and he finds that he has little more to give back, that the rush has started to fade. And fade it does, right out of existence. Frank talks about his job much as frequent targets of domestic abuse talk about their spouses; lovingly, but with more than a touch of fear, anger, and weariness. In fact, at it's core, "Bringing Out the Dead" is more about weariness than anything else. What happens when people completely forget themselves to help others, and how long, in reality, that can last. In the end, we realize that there is a vast difference between happiness and simple peace, and we hope that, despite the scars, Frank can find his own version of peace.
Rating: 
Summary: As far as page turners go, this right up there.
Review: Joe Connolly has produced a wonderfully vivid world of the medic. The stresses, strains, hallucinations and all are blended together with a real sense of human struggle. Connolly takes the reader on a journey through the hell of his schedule and of the individuals that make up his occupation of trauma. And there is never a dull moment. Like real life. Just as Frank Pierce cannot stop for breath, so the reader is hurried along also. This is a fantastic book and one which I urge people to read. If you don't, you simply miss out.
Rating:
Summary: A New York Ghost Story
Review: EMS medic Frank Pierce works the mean streets of New York, encountering tragedy at every turn. His grueling, demanding job has taken its toll; the misery he sees every day has overwhelmed him, causing hallucinations. Haunted by past mistakes and failures, Frank has visions of the people he couldn't save. The ghosts he sees are as real to him as his partners, a colorful group of guys who, believe it or not, have even stranger problems than Frank. Torn apart by a tragic past and a surreal present, Frank struggles to maintain his sanity. I had a strong reaction to this one, perhaps due to the time I spent on a first aid squad in my youth. Connelly, an ex-NY City medic, captures the dark side of being a good samaritan--you constantly see people at their worst. He also depicts the sad truth that drives people away from this kind of work--you can't save everyone. This first novel, a mix of elements from books like M*A*S*H, Ulysses, Catcher in the Rye, and A Manhattan Ghost Story, pulls no punches. Connelly paints a bleak picture in surprisingly mature prose, pulling readers into Frank's dark, paranoiac existence. Patrick McGrath (author of Asylum) says it best: "The author's vision is both bleak and compassionate; his control of his explosive material is masterly. This is strong stuff, full of heart, engaging, harrowing, and real." Don't miss it.
Rating:
Summary: Massive Burnout
Review: Frank Pierce, EMT, suffers from clarity. He sees the real, the unreal, the delusions, the illusions and the hallucinations in stark, living color. He is a falling monument to the truism, "you're only as good as your last save." When the "saves" stop being meaningful, where is your existence? Frank careens through this story like a fading roman candle. He is funny, brilliant, and full of bleak despair. The backdrop of Hell's Kitchen, St. Misery, filthy alleys, and unspeakable tenements pervade the desperate emergencies that are personified in shrieking sirens, wild driving, and life running out. Frank is an expert in what he does, but he has lost his confidence and zeal to excel. He wonders at the meaning of standing in the way of death and the times when he made a mistake and death wasn't meant to be. The author walks the thin line of taking us and Frank to the edge of madness, then stepping back - just barely. The book moves at a frantic pace; we have rags and leavings of old torments while being plunged into new ones. Mr. Connelly's technical skills make It hard to believe this is a first novel. Very fine work. After reading the novel, I saw the film. When I noted Scorsese directed and Nicholas Cage stepped onscreen, I thought "of course."
Rating: 
Summary: Not What you Think
Review: This is the screenplay for the movie, not the novel. I had to return it and buy the book in a real bookstore.
Rating:
Summary: Full of Misery and Mercy
Review: Joe Connelly's first book is a huge success. It's been a while since I've read a writer that so thoroughly closed the aesthetic distance between the text and the reader. Connelly's powers of description are enormous, poetic, and relentlessly original. He manages, somehow, to anchor the plot to a narrator that floats and characters that scurry in and out of the narrative like alley rats. BRINGING OUT THE DEAD is a must read for anyone that wishes to become involved with big city emergency medicine. It is also a must for readers that care about excellent writing that covers the many familiar bases of the post-modern novelist: isolation, alienation, chaos, the anit-hero.
Rating:
Summary: no plot at all. and that's a good thing
Review: This book is quite simply a 3 day look at a man's life through the eyes of his job. It's intense and personal. From front cover to back you watch Frank and his life as an EMS worker in NY. Simply Amazing
Rating:
Summary: Never say die
Review: Working in emergency rooms as a nurse for over 20 years led me to consider this book. I usually do not care to read true life ER type books..why do I want to read about what I see day in and day out? But, this is a novel which just so happens to be as authentic as it can be without being some ER person's diary. The frame of reference is factual. The addition of fiction is perfect and original. Finally a story that reflects the sacrifices many of us encounter, perhaps not to such extremes, but sacrifices none the less. In such a story, Joe Connelly literally demonstrates all those people "lost" in the hands of emergency personnel, and the realization that in our minds we carry them around with us always, ever reconstructing events, pondering what-ifs, and finally having to give up the ghost..even taking their spirits to bed with us so we can at last get some rest. A brilliant, gutsy novel.
Rating:
Summary: Bringing Out The Dead
Review: This is one of the best books I have read. It made great reading while waiting for the next ambulance call. Connelly is a genious, I have felt like Frank many times (Just wanting a quiet shift and four days off)and it is good to show the rest of the world that sometimes The Para-Gods have clay feet
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