COURTNEY MORENO reads her novel IN CASE OF EMERGENCY

In Case of Emergency (McSweeney's)

Join us as we celebrate the release of the debut novel from this award-winning writer. 

What do you do when you can’t function? After rookie EMT Piper Gallagher responds to a call outside a Los Angeles shopping mall for a man who can only tell her, "I can’t function," the question begins to haunt her.

How will Piper continue to function despite the horror she sees working in South Central, and despite her own fractured past? And how will the woman Piper loves continue to function as she experiences the aftershocks of her time spent serving in Iraq?

Piper’s experiences as a rookie break her down and open her up. This vivid and visceral debut is a rich study in trauma—in its causes and effects, in its methods and disguises, in its power and its pull. 

Praise for In Case of Emergency:
"Moreno writes about physical and emotional damage with such precision that the reader feels supine, strapped into her own ambulance, careening from page to page. It's a story about the greatest emergency of all: the plight of being a human with a fragile heart, beating amidst all these dangers." —Joshua Mohr, author of Some Things That Meant the World to Me

"Piper may be a rookie with a lot to learn, but Moreno’s inspiring debut reads like it’s been written by someone with years of experience already under her belt." —K.M. Soehnlein, author of Robin and Ruby and The World of Normal Boys

Courtney Moreno's award-winning writing has been published in LA Weekly and Best American Nonrequired Reading. She received a B.S. in molecular biology from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of San Francisco. During the ten years in between, she worked as an entomologist’s assistant, lab technician, clinical research coordinator, stagehand, set carpenter, modern and aerial dancer, EMT, and field training officer. She lives in San Francisco.