About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherCounterpoint Press

ISBN-101932360255

ISBN-139781932360257

eBay Product ID (ePID)30246489

Product Key Features

Book TitleSkels : a Novel

Number of Pages260 Pages

LanguageEnglish

TopicPsychological, Literary, Medical, Mystery & Detective / Women Sleuths

Publication Year2004

IllustratorYes

GenreFiction

AuthorMaggie Dubris

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.7 in

Item Weight12.4 Oz

Item Length9 in

Item Width6 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

LCCN2004-002998

Dewey Edition22

Dewey Decimal813/.6

SynopsisWhen Orlie Breton shows up in June of 1979 to work as a paramedic in New York City's 911 system, she finds herself plunged into a violent and magical world, populated by medics who are not terribly different from the homeless people--the "skels"--who comprise most of their patient population. Orlie draws parallels between her experiences to the stories and feelings represented in the works of her favorite writers, including Jack London, Walt Whitman, Rimbaud, and Mark Twain. Skels was written with the question in mind of what would happen if the ambulance world really was permeated with the works of past writers, and the skels were carrying the consciousnesses of the writers themselves. What would the protagonist have done if she had met the greatest poet of all, dirty and covered with lice, and been granted the chance to save him? Not from dying, but from his own life. With Skels Dubris shares what she saw during her own time as an EMT-- not literally, but more importantaly, how she felt in her soul, magical and violent and funny, filled with passion, and like it contained some ancient element that was invisible from the outside., Imagining a world wherein ambulance drivers transport skels, or the souls of dead writers, through the underworld, the author pens a unique novel set in 1979 New York that merges the ancient with the modern. Original., Lyrical, violent, and surprisingly passionate, Skels is an inventive yet realistic portrait of the urban underworld from a paramedic's point of view. The story is based on an unusual idea: What would happen if the ambulance world was permeated with the works of past authors, and the homeless patients (the "skels") carried the consciousness of the writers? What would a paramedic do if she met a great poet, dirty and covered with lice, and was granted the chance to save him -- not from dying but from his own life? A funny, gritty urban thriller, Skels pits corrupt cops, bumbling firemen, drunken softball tournaments, and careening transvestites against this surreal literary environment, realistically portraying a New York City of 1979 rich with an ancient truth that is all but invisible from the outside. The characters within it must face brutality and illness, vengeance and despair, and find help in tenderness and the threads that connect them to the past.

LC Classification NumberPS3604.U27S55 2004