Customer Reviews

Duck Blood Soup

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Some first novels bounce on to the scene so tainted with gimmicks to get the reading audience to buy that the reverse happens: committed readers tend to disdain jacket hype, breaking the code that if so much promo is necessary, then the content must be weak.Well, despite wading past the explosive star on the cover reading "Based on Actual Events", the preparatory misnomer that this book is "The Shocking Story of a Real Dr. Jekyl & Mr. Hyde", and someone's idea that adding the MD after the author's name would necessarily make folks buy this book, DUCK BLOOD SOUP wins out completely on its own as a finely written novel. The hype is distractingly unnecessary, because Joseph Molea (please, leave off the MD on a book that is a novel and not a textbook!) is an exceptionally gifted writer. He knows his way around his subject so thoroughly that every character he creates is wholly credible and meaningful to the flow of the story. Whether this information for writing comes from his life experiences makes very little difference since he writes so well. This is not a 'memoirs', though there may be 'actual events' herein. DUCK BLOOD SOUP is as fine a novel about addiction - to alcohol, to prescriptions drugs, to street drugs, to aberrant lifestyles, to conscience-prisons of dysfunctional families - you name it and the addictions are there. What makes this novel so terse is the fact that some of the addicts are physicians, and despite the newsy items about the frequency of drug abuse among, say, anesthesiologists, the general reading public finds it nigh on to impossible to believe that physicians are, after all, humans - humans that happen to be in a profession that is one of the most stressful in existence.But given all of that, Joseph Molea just plain writes well! The method in which he admixes his timeframes, divides his chapters, pauses for moments of past history (much like the patients who just happen to remember a clue of earth-shattering significance that evade the original medical history), and knows how to pick up all the incidental references from page one to the final page so that we have a sense of knowing all the facts, though the ending of the book lies open-ended. Molea is able to write about passion, about psychophysical phenomena that accompany the mind-altering drugs he injects into his characters, and about lingering pains of childhood that mold our future and demand attention before they destroy the adult form.One comes away from this exceptionally fine novel wishing the editor and publisher had spent more time on correcting spelling errors and unfinished words that occur far too frequently to ignore than on the distracting, wholly unnecessary and vapid hype. Joseph Molea is a physician, and from the jacket it seems he is a highly significant practitioner of his art (he is an addiction professional who teaches about substance abuse prevention, education, evaluation, and treatment in Florida). But the man who wrote this fine book is also a Writer and an Author and a wordsmith and a talent to watch. And that is more than enough! Read this book and you'll see why. Let's hope there are many more gestating in this writer's rich mind.

Duck Blood Soup is the rarest of novels, one that grabs you by the lapels on page one, shakes you back and forth in an increasingly frenzied manner as you frantically turn one page after another, and leaves you changed by the whole gripping experience. This is more than just a remarkably good read, however - it is a shocking warning about the dangers of addiction. Dr. Molea has devoted his life to helping medical doctors and other professionals deal with and overcome the deadly trap of addiction. Drug addiction among physicians is a subject I have never given a thought to, but it is easy to see how the insane pressures of such a job, particularly in its earliest stages, can lead to such a problem. Simply saying that drug addiction, especially among doctors, is a terrible, tragic thing makes the point but doesn't cause the true meaning of the words to resonate. What Molea does in Duck Blood Soup is lock the reader in a literary bear hug, take him on a harrowing descent into the maelstrom of addiction, and deliver a visceral lesson that is impossible to forget.

The novel draws from the author's personal experience as well as the experiences of others he has worked with, yet it is unequivocally a work of fiction. It tells the story of young Dr. Rocky VanSlyke, a resident surgeon with a terrible childhood behind him and a rosy future ahead of him - or so it would appear. It isn't an easy life by any means. Rocky has to deal with the incredibly long hours of a resident doctor, the pressure of holding people's lives in his hands every single day, and the stress that comes from dealing with other doctors, nurses, and younger med students; then there's his somewhat dysfunctional relationship with his girlfriend Karla. Still, he might have made it through this period of his life okay, despite a natural proclivity toward addictive behavior - had he not met Vince. Vince Buddy holds some kind of vague legal consulting job with the hospital, and he and Rocky soon become pals. Vince has a problem, and he soon makes it Rocky's problem. It starts with a few Percocets here and there, something to take the edge off and keep him alert; before long, Rocky is injecting Demerol into his veins and becoming completely addicted, both physically and emotionally. Vince shows Rocky how easy it is to get the stuff; all it takes is a prescription from young Dr. VanSlyke himself, a judicious choice of pharmacies, and the syringes and paraphernalia Rocky has at his fingertips every day.

Things go downhill fast for Rocky, and you are right there with him for the deadly ride. Molea understands the mindset of the addict, and this is the source of this novel's incredible power. We see Rocky get deeper and deeper into trouble, watch his self-pledges to give it all up fall away into more and more drug use, shake our head as he continues to rationalize his drug use in the most irrational of manners, even when the cops are ready to pounce on him for his illicit activities and - most disturbingly of all - the very lives of his patients are threatened by his growing incapacity to perform his job. Even the life-threatening trauma of a Grand Mal seizure does nothing to help Rocky see the light. Vince is one slick fellow, engineering many an escape for himself and his friendly drug supplier, but the criminal trail of fake prescriptions and drug abuse these two leave behind them is glaringly obvious to all those who look their way with a critical eye.

Duck Blood Soup is not an uplifting or comforting read. Reading about someone, much less a doctor, injecting himself with a narcotic in different parts of his body, adding Percocet, cough syrup, and other drug concoctions to the deadly mix, working with gravely ill and completely vulnerable patients during times of artificial highs and even more frightening withdrawal-borne lows, and proving himself unable to save himself from the brink of absolute ruin makes for a harrowing, sometimes shocking, always disturbing reading experience. Blood Duck Soup takes you right inside the mind of an addict, and it makes for a read you won't soon forget. I would say that this novel is addictive in and of itself, but that does not seem apropos given the subject matter.

In Duck Blood Soup, author Joseph Molea (a nationally recognized addiction medicine specialist and director of HealthCare Connection, Tampa, Florida) draws upon his medical expertise and professional experience to write an eerie and suspenseful novel of drug addiction among those charged with the highest responsibility and power over human lives -- physicians. At times shocking, but always gripping and intense, Duck Blood Soup is highly recommended as being a first-rate, cover-to-cover saga that can't be put down until the very end.

A thrilling expose on physicians' addictions which will not only keep you up reading late into night, but will give you pause the next time you check into a major hospital! Truly a harrowing look into the modern medical profession, as gripping and well-written as Robin Cooks' classic, "The Year of the Intern!"

DUCK BLOOD SOUP by Joseph Molea MD
8/18/04

DUCK BLOOD SOUP by Joseph Molea, MD, took me by surprise. I was expecting a story filled with violence and gore, due to the title. And since I'm not familiar with the Polish culture, I was not aware of what Duck Blood soup was in the first place. This book is the story of a young medical resident who gets himself hooked on prescription drugs. Rocky Van Slyke is a young man who is on his way to becoming a doctor, but takes a detour courtesy of a shady lawyer, Vincent Buddy, who uses Rocky to get prescriptions filled for his own use.

Rocky doesn't see Vince as anything more than a potential friend and the hospital's resident lawyer. Vince uses Rocky by enticing him with the drugs, and demonstrating that these drugs are an easy way of getting high. Being a doctor, it is easy for Rocky to get these drugs by writing up a prescription under false pretenses. Vince knows that once Rocky is hooked, he'll do anything to help Vince obtain the drugs.

The story opens with Rocky finding himself in a hospital and being told he just had a seizure. They hint to him that it is possibly the exposure to drugs. Thus our story begins. Rocky is the narrator of DUCK BLOOD SOUP. He goes back and forth in time, alternating the past with the present. He tells the story of his childhood: His father who was always away in the Army; his lonely mother who resorts to finding comfort in the arms of other men; and his life after his mother dies, in which he takes care of his dying crippled father. The story always returns to the present, with Rocky dealing with Vince and his drug habit, his fellow residents at the hospital, and his girlfriend Karla.

While at first the reader may not see where the story is headed, it becomes clear that Rocky's past has a lot to do with his present. Molea does a good job at creating this person, Rocky, and describing what makes him tick. It also becomes apparent what Vince the shady lawyer is doing to Rocky, and a few secrets come out at the end of the story about this lawyer, which will tie it all together. Vince's relationship with Rocky, at least to this reviewer, first appears to be innocent, but as the book progresses, it becomes obvious that their relationship is more akin to a parasite.

I am recommending DUCK BLOOD SOUP. It's well written all around, and I hope that Molea continues to write, as he shows he's got what it takes to write a good book. Excellent!

It's an old recipe. Cut a duck's neck and bleed it into the soup pot. The new version requires medical knowledge from a drug-addled doctor who cannot escape his ghosts or himself.

Dr. Rocky Van Slyke is head surgical resident at a Philadelphia inner city hospital where the dregs of society, medicine and the law meet and mingle. Son of a whoring mother and a military father, Rocky spins his story like a Quentin Tarantino film in short vignettes that careen dizzily at times from past to present and back again.

Long hours, grueling studies, an opportunistic hospital lawyer, and the demons of the present and the past drive Rocky from the arms of pharmaceuticals via Vince, the hospital lawyer, and his own prescription pad into a self-created hell.

Duck Blood Soup by Dr. Joseph Molea is Naked Lunch with a medical sensibility, clean pharmaceutical grade drugs, and a descent into oblivion without the psychedelic dreams. Dr. Molea writes from personal experience and tells a sordid tale that never raises its head from the sewers. Dark, sometimes endlessly whining, and blatantly unforgiving, Duck Blood Soup sheds a glaring operating room light on the lengths a broken soul will go to convince himself that he can climb from the depths of the pit of emotional hell and back into decency with a needle in his arm.

Addiction is an insidious disease which begins with the first pill, the first drink, the first whatever. It builds and it builds, taking over a person who soon becomes a slave to the addiction. Living for the addiction created within until death or intervention breaks the cycle. And even for those addicted that because of their training should know better, they are often just as powerless to stop their own addiction as the drug addict living beneath the bridge. They just use a better class of drugs.

For Dr. Rocky VanSlyke, resident of All Saints Hospital in Philadelphia, waking up after a seizure caused by drug use should have done the trick. But it didn't and his slide continues further into the nightmarish world of prescription drug addiction. His methods of choice being Demerol and Percocet. As he begins to lose control over both his personal life and his professional life, the reader is repeatedly taken back in time to his early childhood, teen years, and college life in a search for answers. There were numerous warning signs in every stage of his life, but like his seizure, he didn't see them coming or what they were.

As the pages pass, the reader is exposed to the joy of escape through addiction in the beginning, which soon morphs into a nightmare as the addition goes out of control. That time when addiction rules every second of every day and becomes subservient to everything else. The slow slide into madness continues throughout the work leaving the reader to wonder if this Rocky will get off the canvass one more time.

As a novel, this is an incredibly disturbing read, which will resonate in those with addiction problems. According to the cover, it is "Based on Actual Events" while in the intro the author asks " . . . to be judged, not as an autobiographer, but as a writer of fiction." One wonders where the line is because the work reads all too real from start to finish. For those who have never understood the power of addition over every fiber of a person, this dark and disturbing book is a must read. Afterwards, it might just be a little clearer for you.

Book Facts:

Duck Blood Soup: The Shocking Story of a Real Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
By Joseph Molea, MD
Mystery and Suspense Press (iUniverse)
www.iuniverse.com
2002
Large Trade Paperback
218 Pages
$16.95 US
$27.95 Canada
ISBN # 0-595-21843-1

Kevin R. Tipple © 2005

While you are likely to see many, many books detailing the horrific effects of drug addiction, stories concerning professionals abusing narcotics are not high on the list. Usually, members of the lower classes fall prey to the clutches of drugs more often than lawyers, doctors, or corporate executives. We know real life is quite different. Lawyers, doctors, and business magnates do drink to excess or abuse drugs. What the exact numbers are I wouldn't know, but I do know that careers with high stress factors do lead to higher incidents of destructive behaviors. What could be more stressful than working the long hours of an attorney, or dealing with life and death on a daily basis? Imagine going to school for nearly a quarter of a century (as a surgeon in training does), and then finding out you simply cannot hack the grinding hours, your fellow physicians, and the memories of a bad childhood. What do you do? With "Duck Blood Soup," Dr. Joseph Molea pens a fascinating look into the dark recesses of a surgeon free falling into prescription painkiller torment. If you need a touchstone here, think "Requiem for a Dream" with a medical degree.

Rocky VanSlyke seems to have it all made. He managed to move past a horrible childhood to become a doctor specializing in surgical medicine. Working at All Saints Hospital in inner city Philadelphia as a trainee surgeon, he's now in his fourth year as chief surgical resident. Rocky even dates a pretty nurse named Karla when he isn't saving lives on a daily basis. Yep, everything seems to go well until our heroic doctor falls in with Vincent G. Buddy, the grossly obese hospital attorney. This guy has a big problem with abusing prescription medications, namely Demerol and Percocet, and it isn't too long before the shrewd lawyer sets his sights on the emotionally unbalanced VanSlyke as his next Doctor Feelgood. Vincent and Rocky spend an increasingly inordinate amount of their downtime cruising through the city streets cashing in prescriptions for narcotics. Then it's back to the attorney's apartment for an evening of pill popping, injections, and IV drips of quantities vast enough to kill an army. Predictably, the abuse escalates to frightening proportions as VanSlyke begins writing prescriptions daily so Vincent can fill them at the pharmacy. As events spiral increasingly out of control, tragedies of life long import await the young healer at the end of the road, tragedies requiring the right choices if he is to survive another day.

Rocky VanSlyke's drug problems partly stem from his hyper stressful career as a saver of lives, but the real difficulties emerge from his childhood. The doctor grew up in a military family based somewhere in Georgia. His home life was not the thing of fond remembrances; his mother was an alcoholic, promiscuous woman who could not stand taking care of her young son in between her numerous illicit trysts. VanSlyke's father was a gung-ho army type, always away on missions to save the country and the world. And there's a lot of saving needed by the country as the Cuban Missile Crisis looms large and the Cold War heats up to fever pitch. None of this helps Rocky, though, as he witnesses his mother routinely cheat on his father, burn through the family's money, and verbally abuse her husband. The events of his childhood culminate in a startlingly violent denouement with life long implications for our hapless hero. Molea writes the story in such a way that scenes of VanSlyke's terrible childhood traumas flit in and out of the larger drug addled narrative. It is to the author's credit that he relates Rocky's disastrous experiences in this volcanic environment without using it to excuse his later drug problems.

"Duck Blood Soup" is a frightening book if for no other reason than seeing a doctor, a man responsible for the health and well being of others, destroying his life with painkillers. Although he starts out "responsibly" with his pain pills and injections, it isn't too long before he's going to work immediately after injecting himself with Demerol. One horrific scene in the book, which takes place at the hospital, involves the accidental demise of a patient as a direct result of carelessness on the part of VanSlyke. Did his drug abuse have anything to do with the incident? The narrative never spells that out definitively one way or the other, but the implications of the incident are horrifying nonetheless. Most of us will at one time or another end up in a hospital recovering from ailments both serious and minor, and we don't want to think that the attending physician might be hopped up on prescription drugs when life or death decisions are taking place. Heck, we don't even want to think our doctors abuse any substance at any time in their lives. Molea's story strips away the naïve belief that doctors are above such base failings like drug addiction. They are, after all, only human just like the rest of us, with the same frailties and needs as any other person.

The only problem I experienced with "Duck Blood Soup" (the title of which, by the way, makes more sense after reading the story) concerned the presence of a small number of typographical errors. Don't worry about it, though, since the number of mistakes is small and in no way hampers the flow of this engaging yet deeply frightening story. Molea's book throws a troubling light on a problem most of us would prefer to leave in the dark. It's a story of addiction as powerful as Selby's "Requiem for a Dream," and belongs on the bookshelf of any reader interested in examining the ghastly underbelly of addiction in our modern society.

Dr. Molea puts you there, in the moment, and at times it's perhaps just a bit too real. There were moments when my heart raced and other moments when I wanted to cry. It's a story that any addict can certainly relate to as can anyone who has a parent, a friend, a brother or sister with an addiction. More to the point - it's an all too human story.

This book was reviewed by the Mid-West Review of Books and rated "very high". That was an understatment. This book was so engaging and the story so compelling that I found it hard to put down--even more so after finding that it is based on a true story. There is much more information and rescources on the web site: ... I can't wait for the authors next book!