In Case of Emergency

June 2, 2014
In this confident, well-paced debut novel, Moreno uses the story of a young woman involved in the exacting world of medicine, biology, and first-response care to examine themes of family and romance. After a devastating breakup and a string of dead-end jobs, 28-year-old Piper Gallagher finds work as an EMT, serving violence-riddled South Central Los Angeles. Piper stumbles through her first weeks on the job—freezing during emergencies, bungling CPR, mistaking stabbing victims for loved ones—but gradually establishes a sense of confidence and acquires extensive knowledge of human biology. Along the way, she offers expositions on various organs (ears, lungs, skin, heart) in language both lyrical and eerie (for example, the “lapping of cerebrospinal fluid bathing your brain”). The theme of trauma, meanwhile, extends to Piper’s personal life. Her new girlfriend, Ayla, is a brain-damaged Iraq War vet fending off vestigial symptoms of PTSD, and Piper and her brother, Ryan, are haunted by the memory of their mother, who abandoned them as children and subsequently died. Moreno deftly weaves the themes of medicine and family together, probing the extent to which science can and can’t help us care for one another. Piper and Ryan lack definition as characters, but a cast of fully realized supporting actors, including Piper’s no-BS instructor, Ruth, and case-hardened partner, William, keep this story’s heart beating.

September 15, 2014
A debut novel that taps the trauma of the streets to explore one woman's personal damage and the difficulty of relationships. Moreno begins her story with what appears to be instructional pages from an emergency medical technician training manual. This clinical approach to emergency is in stark contrast to the personal angst in Piper Gallagher's life. She has banged around Los Angeles aimlessly looking for love, a career, some sense to her mother's leaving and death. An experience from her youth when she tried to save a hit-and-run victim by administering CPR informs her new life as a rookie medical technician, riding the ambulances through the carnage of South Central Los Angeles. She works hard, learns the ropes, stands witness to death, deals with her eccentric family, and eventually breaks down from the constant stress of quick decisions that fail to save strangers in need. There is a love story intertwined with the action, and Piper is inspired by the difficult adjustment of her lover, Ayla, to daily life disrupted by a brain injury from her tour as a soldier in Iraq. Moreno uses the stark writing of a medical text to contrast the messy reality of relationships and personal trauma. Her characters are real: the Irish father who never let go of his wife who left years ago and deals with loneliness through set-piece jokes; the emergency medical techs at Station 710 who make gallows humor and macho sexual puns between calls. When Piper shuts down, the writing becomes a powerful expression of depression-"I can no longer watch regular television. Violent crime shows fill me with a numbing terror; commercials enrage and horrify me." She hides from everyone but eventually emerges, ."..so very tired of being afraid." In this emotionally moving, well-written, engaging novel, Moreno strikes a profound balance between the clinical logic of trauma and the personal irrationality of a young woman dealing with her demons.

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September 1, 2014
Emotionally exhausted after the death of her long estranged mother, a failed relationship, and a string of forgettable jobs, Piper Gallagher launches into a career as an EMT in South Central L.A. She suffers the usual indignities of the newbie in a stressful profession that can leave little room for error, but she is determined not to let the hard shell required for the job keep her from feeling real empathy for her patients. In this fragile state, Piper meets a woman who makes her want to give relationships another try. But Ayla has fragilities of her own, having returned from Iraq with a brain injury. Piper is pumped through with adrenaline as she daily confronts the harsh realities of the damage people do to themselves and others and pushes to open herself as she struggles to provide emotional support for Ayla. Moreno is masterful at juxtaposing vivid descriptions of bodily functions and internal organs and portrayals of visceral pain and vulnerability and considering the many ways that so many of us can be traumatized.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)