History

Neil Flynn is a resident physician specializing in emergency medicine at Tulane Medical Center. He was born in Boston to a middle-class family whose parents divorced while he was in junior high. Neil’s mother won the custody battle and relocated to Newport, California with her son, where he spent the rest of his adolescence before moving to New Orleans to attend Tulane University. Although the parents of his future girlfriend Caroline Malveaux-Devillers privately bemoaned their daughter’s decision to date a “California liberal,” even one who shared their faith, Neil actually spent most of his adolescence among devout Reaganites in the conservative-leaning Orange County. That long period of exposure to differing social and political views helped him navigate one of the larger pitfalls in his relationship with Caroline, whose family he disapproved of only slightly less than they did him.

The two remained together for several years while pursuing their degrees at Tulane, but found they had too little time to spend together and too few aspirations in common after Caroline decided to abandon hers of becoming a doctor in favor of attending law school. The couple ended their relationship on amicable terms and continued to stay in touch throughout Neil’s increasingly stressful internship at Tulane Medical Center. He finally began practicing as a resident physician in the summer of 2015, where he works in the emergency room—an equally stressful job that brings him into daily contact with the worst consequences of the city’s many sins, especially during festivals (when hospitalizations peak). Neil has seen fourteen-year-olds force-fed glass and listened to parents screaming just outside the doors when they couldn’t be saved. He’s seen victims with their eyes gouged out, throats slashed, or strangled by Mardi Gras beads and found naked and violated on the hoods of their family’s cars. Still, despite the long and all-too wearisome hours, the job has always been worth it to Neil.

Caroline: Caroline shivers. “No thanks. I don’t know what I would have done if one of them had died in my arms.”

GM: “Lucky for everyone you were there,” Neil repeats. “Yvonne’s family is…” He smiles. “Well, effusive. That’s the part that makes it worth it. Seeing them all walk out of the hospital together.”

Neil is of no relation to the other Flynns in New Orleans.

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