Evacuation Plan: A Novel from the Hospice

by Joe M. O'Connell

Welcome to the world of hospice where no one talks about the weather or other trivialities. Enter Matt, a fledgling screenwriter who volunteers to work with the terminally ill in exchange for a good plot for his next script. He meets the people who work, die and mourn in this world of last moments. In the novel-in-stories style of Tim O'Brien's July July , O'Connell's characters in Evacuation Plan reveal themselves in poignantly unfolding stories: the gambler who played a risky game involving his wife and his ex-con father, the mortician who was an unwed father-to-be, the daughter whose dying father had no clue about the night her world spun out of control, the nurse who lived among aging neighbors and struggled to hold her own family in place, the drunk who magically encountered himself as a boy. Forgiveness, joy, making the final leap: Evacuation Plan is the story of a world in which the clock ticks off the final moments for all of us and makes those moments a lifetime.

182 pages, Paperback

First published July 19, 2007

About the author

Joe O'Connell's is currently at work on The Contortionists, historical fiction about the amazing Ross Sisters.

His novel EVACUATION PLAN was loosely inspired by volunteer work he did in a residential hospice.

Joe's short fiction has been widely published in such journals as The G.W. Review, Other Voices, Lullwater Review and Confrontation and has won first prize at both the Deep South Writers Conference and the Louzelle Barclay Awards.

He was formerly a film industry columnist for The Dallas Morning News, Austin American-Statesman and The Austin Chronicle.

He teaches writing at Austin Community College.

Reviews

[Jennie Rosenblum · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first this book appears to be a set of short stories. However, as you read you realize that the stories are really chapters and part of a bigger novel. At times this worked, but there were a few cases with new chapters where I could not figure out how they fit in. It was not until I had completed reading the entire book that I saw the whole picture.
I worried when I started this book that it would be sad or difficult to read. It is not. The book has more to do with life than death.
While it is well written this book was not my cup of tea. I could not get into the story nor comprehend the drive behind the main character.

[Todd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read my interview with Joe O'Connell here:

http://exileonninthstreet.wordpress.com/

[Maria Elmvang · Rating 2 out of 5]

My rating is based on GoodReads' 'understanding' of 2 stars (i.e. "It was okay") and not Amazon's.

Aspiring script writer Matt visits a hospice in order to gather inspiration for his great play. Spending the days getting to know the people staying there, Matt realized the hospice is full of stories, for anybody who cares enough to sit down and listen. From the lady whose sister ran off with a circus artist (or wanted to, anyway) to the old man who was just hoping to be reconciled with his children before he left this earth, Matt talks to them all, asking them what was their best experience in life, and hearing the stories they just have to get off their chest, before it's too late.

The idea behind Evacuation Plan is brilliant. Joe O'Connell works from the theory that "everybody has a story to tell", and the reader is left with the knowledge that this is without a doubt true. The book changes focus constantly with the chapters being told alternatingly from Matt's point of view, and from the view of one of the people at the hospice.

The main thread running through all the stories is death and how to cope with it, but this is not a strong enough connection to get the stories linked together properly, and Evacuation Plan ends up feeling more like a book of short stories with a common theme, than like a full novel. This doesn't make the book any less worth reading, but it is always an advantage for the reader to know what to expect, in order not to be disappointed by the number of lose threads left hanging.

Though dealing with a sober subject, Joe O'Connell manages to be neither to sombre nor engage in too much gallows humour. Death is faced unapologetically and straight forwardly which is a very refreshing change from books that tend to either shy away from the subject, or wallow in it.

[Dana · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this novel, but was disappointed. Rather than really learning anything about the hospice culture and experience, what sparse nuggets of philosophy there were, were really more of a general nature and didn't have anything specifically to do with hospice. The narrative is all first person, but jumps from the main writer, to each of a variety of people he meets at the hospice - some staff and some greiving family members. The whole premise is a bit suspect in the first place as I doubt any hospice just lets a filmaker or writer hang out at its nurses station and sleep on its couches as our main character does here. Most of the, what are essentially short stories, are not interesting, with the exception of one or two. And the writing style of some is downright hard to read, in particular one in the voice of a teenage boy that has absurd sounding slang and simple sentence structure. Eventually we hear about the main narrator's own experience with the death of his father. That is actually interesting, but there was just so much other extraneous stuff to sift through before then - that by the time we got there, I was no longer really engaged. He tries to wrap up with reflections on death, regret, and those we leave behind - some of which are insightful - but the set up didn't match this final tone and the whole thing was just too unfocused.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Was not what I had been looking for in a Hospice book. Says that the author went to a Hospice House, looking to talk with patients and looking for an idea for his next screenwrite. Didn't talk to hardly any patients and each chapter was about someone he ran into. Example: the chef for the Hospice house. I thought the very last page of the book, where the author wrote out what he thought people should do for "An evacuation plan" while we are still living was the most thought provoking page of the entire book.