A grim and intense novel about an idealistic young doctor who finds the reality of hospital work a world away from what he imagined. Along the way his sense of self, sense of justice and ability to feel are tested to the limit. Gritty and graphic, this story makes the reader wonder just how much of this fiction is truth.
With her fingers she strangles the base of my penis. Trapped blood turns acid. My muscles ache from oxygen lack. I remember the Blue Bloater with his dying rasps. They're all there in my mind to be revived, not only him but also the Breathless Lady and Didn't Mean It and the Vague Yellow Woman and even Grey Meat. I throb as cells swamped with carbon dioxide cry out for O2. I remember the Young Headache Man's dick turning black and having to be cut off. I remember Coffee Grounds' body ending at the hips and the other half of him incinerated as hospital waste. In accelerating beats of pain she drives me to come. When I do I gasp at the surge of relief as she releases the acid blood and my tissues respire again.
