Beat the Reaper: A Novel
by Josh Bazell
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Book Reviews of Beat the Reaper: A Novel
Book Review: ER meets A History of Violence - and it works
Summary: 5 Stars
When you look at mainstream television and wade past the slew of reality shows and generic comedies, scripted drama tends to be dominated by two genres. First is the criminal world, represented by epic series like "The Sopranos" or "Law and Order"-style procedurals; and second is the medical field, headed by the "ER" juggernaut and a slew of comedic dramas such as "House" or "Grey's Anatomy." Both series have their own distinct traits but also share common threads: overly tense environments, a heavy dose of gallows humor and a professional lingo that takes a few episodes to understand.
Despite the similarities between and popularity of both genres, the two rarely come together - which is a mistake, if Josh Bazell's first novel "Beat the Reaper" is any indication. A mix of "ER" and "A History of Violence," casting a hitman in the role of a downtrodden medical resident, "Beat the Reaper" is a book with a distinctive voice, an educated grasp of its subject matter and a talent for delivering some truly shocking scenes.
The hitman in question is Pietro "Bearclaw" Brnwa, alias "Peter Brown" - a contract killer for a New York crime family who has been placed in witness protection and now works agonizingly brutal graveyard shifts at Manhattan Catholic. At the start of one of these shifts, he finds out a terminal cancer patient not only recognizes him, but has contacted a friend to put the word out in the event of his death. With the patient about to go under the knife, Brnwa has to feverishly find a way to keep him alive - while at the same time dealing with every other demand an understaffed hospital encompasses.
Obviously there's a big difference between the Hippocratic oath and murder for hire, but Bazell does a surprisingly solid job of melding the two. The story, told in first-person present tense, shows how Brnwa's mind processes the situation from a medical standpoint, such as when he downs mugger with brutal efficiency and goes through the anatomy of breaking the elbow. It's a wry, cynical voice reminiscent of Edward Norton's narration in "Fight Club," and it drives the story on through his narration and a variety of wry footnotes rattling off medical facts and legalese.
Brnwa makes for an interesting character, but it's the hospital he operates in that commands your attention. Bazell, who holds both an MD and an English literature degree, has stocked the book full of details that could only be known by someone operating in the healthcare trenches. Readers will learn how residents function during obscenely long shifts (stimulants procured from drug reps, Milk of Magnesia poured over cold cereal), see just how sexist an oncologist can be in the operating room and how a doctor can tell how old you are at first glance. All of these asides are offered in the same cynical and resigned tone, resembling the narration for "Scrubs" as read by Mel Gibson.
The medical terminology is so well mastered that the mob chapters regularly come up short. There's a fair share of gratuitous violence and commentary on the state of America's legal system, but many of the characters depicted lack the realism and personality of the hospital residents. A few scenes are simply over-the-top even in the book's context and there are also one or two unnecessary plot twists - one in particular involving the background of Pietro's grandparents - that feel like Bazell is reaching for impact.
And reaching isn't something he needs to, as the book is ripe with truly disturbing scenes. Beyond the burnout and apathy of the general hospital staff, Manhattan Catholic is rife with events that require a strong constitution to even witness. Syringes of unidentifiable contents, legs that swell up with blood for unknown reasons and clearly unsanitary surgical equipment all populate the area, and give Brnwa more immediate concerns than mafia shooters. The last few chapters are particularly macabre, with a trapped Brnwa once again falling back on medical school to create the most wincingly painful improvised weapon in literature.
While the book is a bit too eager to set up a sequel - the epilogue chapter is almost ham-handed in presenting plot threads - the majority of the volume is so well done that its continuation is encouraged. "Beat the Reaper" is entertaining and fast-paced, a thinking man's suspense novel with enough of the real world in it to make readers even more uncomfortable about their next visit to the hospital.
Book Review: Josh Bazell's debut medical/mob thriller
Summary: 5 Stars
BEAT THE REAPER is Josh Bazell's debut medical/mob thriller. His anti-hero calls himself Dr. Peter Brown in his present incarnation. He is an intern at one of New York City's worst hospitals, Manhattan Christian. As he narrates the story, he moves back and forth in time using his backstory, which puts his present life in context. One early morning on his rounds, he is assigned a new patient, Nicholas LoBrutto, aka Eddy Squillante, a mobster.
As soon he lays eyes on Dr. Brown, he recognizes him and screams that "Bearclaw" is there to kill him. Obviously the intern has some kind of mob connections and until now has done a good job of hiding them. Squillante knows he has three months to live and tells Brown he will blow his cover if he doesn't save his life. The story is shaped with the past and present colliding and leaves readers eager to understand who Brown is, how he got to be an intern at Manhattan Christian and what his legal status is. Witness Protection Program? Or hiding out on his own?
After his parents died, Brown was brought up by his grandparents, who treated him well and gave him a good life. But tragedy struck when he was in his teens, and he came home to find them brutally murdered. Who on earth would want to kill this elderly couple who never had any trouble with anyone? Now an orphan, the family of a schoolmate takes the youth into their home and makes him part of their lives. At first it seems that he is being given princely treatment with no strings attached. But one day, the friend's father has a "talk" with him and explains the debt he owes and will continue to owe for a long time.
His life changes dramatically, and he gains the reputation of a foot soldier who is nicknamed "Bearclaw." His name at that time is Pietro Brnwna, a mob hit man who looks at violence as he would later look at an X-ray. Any job he is asked to do he does with relish and no afterthoughts. By the end of the book, at least a dozen bodies have been racked up.
Years pass, but unlike many Mafioso, Brown is given permission to leave the "FAMILY" if he agrees to one more job. His "mentor" wants Pietro to make his son a killing machine, too. The agreement is reached and understood to be the initiation of the other young man into the mob. He has to "make his bones" and kill at least one person, then get away with it. The assignment goes into motion but takes strange and unexpected twists. Something is not right. These two men who knew each other from the time they were in school are having "a failure to communicate."
In the meantime, the narrative has segued from the past crime scenes to the present Dr. Peter Brown, miracle worker. Almost. He's very good and really enjoys medicine. But now that Squillante knows who he is, he is going to have to disappear again and become someone else. Does this mean that Josh Bazell will bring him back in another life as whatever the witness program allows him to morph into? Yes!
In an interview Bazell said, "Brown goes on to solve crimes that require both scientific understanding and physical toughness." And when asked about the footnotes sprinkled throughout the novel, he replied, "To try footnotes in a book with a fair amount of science in it seemed obvious." He admitted that some readers find them distracting, but if they choose to read them, he hopes they "will find them worth the time."
--- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum
Book Review: Sick Pleasures
Summary: 3 Stars
THE SETUP
The novel consists of two major plot-lines. In the "main" or "Brown" story (told in first-person present-tense) medical resident Peter Brown finds himself in a difficult situation, the result of his past as Pietro Brnwa (the second story) as a Mafia hitman which Brown relates in past tense. In summary, Brown is recognized by a gangster, who has arranged to "out" Brown if he dies in an a very risky operation.
Although the Pietro Brnwa "flashback" story is told in third person past-tense, the scene in which Brnwa visits Auschwitz is in second-person present-tense ("you see the..."), which is disconcerting, because the reader's reactions would not necessarily be those described. And in fact, Peter Brown (as opposed to Pietro Brnwa) would not have remembered the experience in the same way. Which raises the question of who the "narrator" is. Actually, the use of second-person present-tense was probably a very clever technical device used to side-step this problem. (Explaining the need for such a device in greater detail would amount to a major league spoiler---ruining perhaps the best twist in the novel, for those who have not read it yet).
CAVEATS
Bazell uses the term "cracker" for anyone living outside New York City. "Cracker" is a very derogatory term meaning "White trash", that is, unwashed, uncouth, uneducated, ignorant, lazy, and slovenly.
It is one thing for Southern Blacks to use the term "cracker" "within the family" so-to-speak. In the South, "cracker" means any "non-Black person" optionally with derogatory overtones, depending how how and when it is used. For a Black man to address a White man as "Cracker" is a challenge, meaning approximately, "I am as good a man as you---you got a problem with that?" or perhaps "Are you a White racist SOB--or are you willing to respect me as a man?" Many friendships actually start this way.
But that is not at all the sense in which Bazell uses the nasty epithet. I have no doubt that that in Bazell's mind "popular minorities", such as Blacks, homosexuals, illegal immigrants, Native Americans, etc. are excluded. Even so, Bazell uses "cracker" as an egregious insult with the meaning that he considers all white Americans living outside New York City to be "white trash".
But, you argue "artistic freedom", "autheticity". Really? Bazell does not dare use the "n"-word, nor corresponding derogatory terms for homosexuals, Italians, Jews, Hispanics etc. which are "common street language" in New York City. Why doesn't he use such words? Those words are not tolerated in print nor in polite society. "Cracker", as Bazell uses it, should not be tolerated either.
THE VERCICT
"Beat the Reaper" is an is over-the-top action-packed, thriller, which can also accurately be described as hilarious, offensive, exciting, vulgar, outrageous, and gory. Although it was a hoot, the most fun I've had with a book in a very long time, the very abrupt ending left me unsatisfied, needing resolution. I also felt as though I needed to scrape something nasty off the bottom of my shoe.
Book Review: RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "WHEN YOU START OFF BY WATCHING A PIGEON FIGHT A RAT... YOU'RE ABOUT TO START A WILD RIDE!"
Summary: 5 Stars
When the very FIRST sentence... in the very FIRST book... written by a new author is: "SO I'M ON MY WAY TO WORK AND I STOP TO WATCH A PIGEON FIGHT A RAT IN THE SNOW, AND SOME F*HEAD TRIES TO MUG ME!... you know you could be in the right place... at the right time... to be part of a magical... riotous... unruly... maiden voyage... with an author... who... based on his wild concoction of multiple "fictional"... biographical... background... demographics... has created a protagonist... as unique as an individual snow flake. But in no way... can the central character... ever be described... as being as pure as the newly fallen snow. Born Pietro Brnwa... later known as "Bearclaw" Brnwa... and still later... once he enters the witness protection program... he's known as Peter Brown. And if you want to be really technical... even later... he's known as Dr. Peter Brown.
Pietro was raised by his Jewish Grandparents until they were murdered, and then the parent's of his best childhood friend... "Skinflick"... raised him. The fact that "Skinflick's" Father... David Locano... was a Mafia lawyer... greased the skids... that lead Pietro... into the life of a Mafia hit man. (It also... probably didn't hurt that Pietro's childhood role models were Batman and Charles Bronson in "DEATH WISH".) What is absolutely mesmerizing about this fast-paced story... is that it constantly shifts from the present time... where Pietro... aka... "Bearclaw"... aka... Peter Brown... is now Doctor Peter Brown... and the author who is a REAL-LIFE-INTERN at UCSF... spews out real life medical terms (with definitions... when he feels they're needed at the bottom of the book pages) coated with raucous "black-humor"... and then shifts... to Mafia "hit" flashbacks... with gruesome detail... all with tongue-placed-firmly-in-cheek... without missing a beat... on the medical side... or the Mafia murder mayhem side! If that isn't tantalizing enough... interspersed within these two realms... is a trip to Poland for revenge against Nazi loyalists... that turned his Grandparents in during the war... resulting in them being imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp. In a historically correct... and compelling... presentation... the author presents details about the death camps... with the same type of notes on the bottom of the page as he provides on medical terms. What a remarkable literary juggling act... balancing medicine... Mafia hits... and Holocaust history... all the while racing full speed ahead... with an action-packed... gripping... "dark-humor"... drenched... thriller. If all this isn't enough... we also have shark attacks... and the reader is left still wanting more! Thank goodness the author is already working on his second novel. Josh Bazell has hit a tape measure homerun on his first at bat!
Book Review: Fun read.... Despite some writing errors.....
Summary: 4 Stars
Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell is a quick, dynamic story with few (but very real) flaws but an overall solid start for this rookie writer.
Beat the Reaper tells the duel story of Pietro Brwna.
One story follows Pietro as he befriends a known Mob lawyer, David Locano, and his son, Skinflick (honestly what he is called in the book), in order to exact revenge for his slain grandparents, which leads to his work as an "unofficial hitman." He makes a point of only killing those that deserve it (according to him). As time goes on he becomes best friends with Skinflick and becomes closer and closer to his family and deeper and deeper into his regrettable occupation. When he finally meets the love of his life all he can do is try to think of ways to get out of his current lifestyle.
The other story tells of Peter Brown, Pietro's new name after he joined witness protection. Peter Brown is a medical intern at a seedy hospital in Manhattan. This story tells of his woes and his trials as he tries to make it through another day in the most stressful job in the world. That is until he runs into Scagnetti, an old cohort of his dying of cancer in his hospital. Now it's THE most stressful job in the world.
These dueling stories are told chapter-by-chapter and done exceptionally well. The end of the book was so intense I wanted read it through my fingers like a frightened date at a horror movie.
I'm not sure if Josh Bazell has drawn any comparisons to Chuck Palahniuk but he should. The dialogue, dark humor, and over-the-topness (I know brutal word) are too similar not to ignore, not too shabby.
Although the story itself is terrific there are definitely some writing flaws of Bazell's that hopefully some more experience should remedy. First of all, the book is covered with footnotes. I counted after I read the book and came to 59. 59! In a 300 page book (that is generously fonted and spaced), that is entirely too many and very distracting, to me, that many footnotes is a sign of immaturity and a more experienced writer can work around that and you wouldn't even notice. There was a slight string left untied. Bazell didn't explain what happened to a seemingly meaningless character that he felt the need to address every 20 pages. You felt like there was more to this character, but there wasn't. That's bothersome. Finally, the language doesn't bother me, but if it bothers you it might be a problem.
So take it for what it's worth, if language, some gruesome parts, and some writing errors don't bother you then I heartily recommend Beat the Reaper. I did really enjoy it and I think you will too.