The Night Interns
By (Author) Austin Duffy
Granta Books
Granta Books
4th July 2023
4th May 2023
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
823.92
Paperback
208
Width 129mm, Height 198mm, Spine 12mm
151g
"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
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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.
'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 Recovery
'The Night Interns is an utterly immersive read. Duffy has managed to capture the claustrophobia, exhaustion and constant pressure of life in a contemporary hospital so effectively I could physically feel the tension on every page. A gripping, honest and incredibly important book', Jan Carson, author of The Raptures
Austin Duffy is the author of two novels, Ten Days and This Living and Immortal Thing, which was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year and was runner-up for the McKitterick Prize. He is a practising medical oncologist and lives in Ireland with his wife and two children.