Skels

When Orlie Breton shows up in June of 1979 to work as a paramedic in New York City's 911 system, she finds herself plunged into a violent and magical world, populated by medics who are not terribly different from the homeless people--the skels--who comprise most of their patient population.

Orlie draws parallels between her experiences to the stories and feelings represented in the works of her favorite writers, including Jack London, Walt Whitman, Rimbaud, and Mark Twain. Skels was written with the question in mind of what would happen if the ambulance world really was permeated with the works of past writers, and the skels were carrying the consciousnesses of the writers themselves. What would the protagonist have done if she had met the greatest poet of all, dirty and covered with lice, and been granted the chance to save him? Not from dying, but from his own life. With Skels Dubris shares what she saw during her own time as an EMT-- not literally, but more importantaly, how she felt in her soul, magical and violent and funny, filled with passion, and like it contained some ancient element that was invisible from the outside.

Author: Maggie J. Dubris
Publisher: Soft Skull Press
Published: 05/14/2004
Pages: 238
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.77lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.24w x 0.68d
ISBN: 9781932360257


Award: Lambda Literary Awards - Nominee


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 06/01/2004 pg. 507
New York Times 08/22/2004 pg. 23

About the Author
Maggie Dubris is the author of In the Dust Zone, Skels, and Weep Not, My Wanton. Her poem, "WillieWorld," first published as a chapbook by Richard Hell's Cuz Editions, is now available as an ebook.

For ten years she was guitarist and a principal songwriter for the all-female band Homer Erotic, performing at NYC clubs and festivals in Tampa and Las Vegas. In 2010 she was awarded a NYFA fellowship in music for her soundscape work, which has been featured as the sound element in The Vanishing Birds Project and The Vanishing Oceans Project, collaborative installations created with the artist Linda Byrne that have been exhibited in New York and Pittsburgh.

Maggie worked for twenty years as a full-time 911 paramedic in the Times Square district in New York City, and responded to the Trade Center on September 11th. She is currently employed as a professional hypnotist and a paramedic on film and TV sets. She also has a black belt in karate, and worked part-time for Kids Kicking Cancer as a martial arts health care worker.