The Night Interns by Austin Duffy
Synopsis
Intravenous lines, catheters, bodies in distress, wounds: three young surgical interns working the night shift must care for - and keep alive - the influx of patients, while frightened and uncertain about what the night will throw at them. The Night Interns beautifully conjures the alien space of the hospital wards and corridors through the viewpoint of one of the interns, as he comes to terms with the bodily reality of the patients and the bizarre instruments of healing. Equally unsettling for the inexperienced junior staff are the dysfunctional hierarchies of the hospital workplace.
Under intense pressure and with very little sleep, the interns become inured to their encounters with sickness, all the while searching for the meaning in their work. By turns moving, shocking, and darkly funny, The Night Interns fizzes with nervous energy, forensic insight and moral tension, as it evokes life and death on the frontline.
Reviews
'Stylish, mordant, and pitch-perfect - I read it in one sitting. If Rachel Cusk or Sally Rooney had been junior doctors they might have come up with something like this' Gavin Francis, author of Recover
'A sharp shock of a book, visceral, and acutely affecting.' Lisa McInerney
'With the dark humour and moral seriousness that make Austin Duffy's writing so captivating, The Night Interns brilliantly portrays the excruciating stress of constantly feeling that what is expected of you may well be more than you are capable of achieving' Carys Davies
About the Author
Austin Duffy's debut novel This Living and Immortal Thing was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year, was Runner-Up for the McKitterick Prize and was highly commended for the BMA Medical Books Awards. He grew up in Ireland, studied medicine at Trinity College Dublin and is a practising medical oncologist. He lives in Ireland with his wife and two children.