I’m keenly aware that trying to sell a book with a title like ‘I Am Suicide Man’ is not an easy proposition. It’s a loud title, possibly even a scary, off-putting title. But after much discussion with my wise editor, it is the one that fits best (although we decided to add the subtitle: ‘The truth behind the ‘Cash for Suicide’ scandal’ to soften it slightly).

‘He cares… he actually cares for these Earth people’
‘Like pets?’
‘I suppose so.’

Kneel Before Zod

What does the title conjure in your head? Do you think about suicide bombers? Dare devils? Super heroes? (My mind occasionally throws up a bastardised General Zod line: “This… Suicide Man is nothing of the kind…”). All kinds of images and emotions might be encouraged by the title. So it’s important to explain the story itself.

At the moment, I’m reading Jon Ronson’s The Psychopath Test. There’s a section where he meets a TV producer who used to work on an unnamed show (possibly Jeremy Kyle’s programme). The producer admits to judging potential subjects by what medication they were taking. If they were on nothing, they probably weren’t ‘mad’ enough to make interesting telly. If they were taking several kinds of pills, they would probably be too ‘mad’. And if they were on Prozac, that was usually a sign of the right level of ‘madness’.

This kind of detached callousness when making TV is hardly rare, but it was still shocking to read. Stories like these demonstrate not only what kind of things we now class as entertainment (and the primary focus of shows like Kyle’s is entertainment) but also what kind of lengths people go to, what lines they will cross, to produce that ‘entertainment’.

Very Extreme Makeover

And this is really what I Am Suicide Man is all about. Yes, it is about a man who finds sponsorship to commit suicide for a charity, but it is also about the fact that this could really happen. It sounds fantastic – but it isn’t.

Listen, Ronson also tells the story of an Extreme Makeover contestant in America who was jettisoned from the programme before her ‘life-enhancing’ surgery could take place. This happened after the subject had watched her closest family and friends talk on camera about how ugly she was. This bitter pill may have been swallowed had she had the surgery, but when she was cast aside (her recovery time wouldn’t fit into their schedule), she was left with the knowledge that the people she loved thought she was a freak and the apparently-confirmed belief that she was, as she had suspected, hideous. Her sister, wracked with guilt, later committed suicide. This is a tale that in the 60s or 70s could have passed as science fiction. But it happened, and these things continue to happen.

Suicide, of course, is a taboo. It’s not like murder. We’re allowed to love a juicy murder. Suicide is far more difficult, much darker. So this was a very hard story to write. I hope it’s a story, though, that is enjoyable, even blackly comic at times, because it is not really about suicide, it’s about fame and money and notoriety and ambition and advertising and desperation and the million messages flung at us every day.

Here’s the blurb:

The ‘Cash for Suicide’ scandal occurred in the late summer of 2006, after a man, known only to the public as ‘Suicide Man’, managed to secure corporate sponsorship to end his life.

In a controversial saga played out in newspapers, on the radio and on television, Suicide Man’s vision and character were destroyed and his philosophy lost, amidst a tumult of unfair criticism and ill-informed comment. Suicide Man was profoundly misunderstood. His aim – to help a local school and to do more in death than he ever could in life – was forgotten; trampled in the rush to condemn his actions.

In an effort to redress the balance before his death, he wrote this memoir, covering the last weeks of his life. He hoped that it would help people understand how he felt and why he acted as he did, while at the same time documenting the manner in which his life spiralled so quickly out of control.

If you condemned Suicide Man, read this book. Allow him to present his side of the story. You may change your mind.

Book Launch Reminder

Don’t forget: BOOK LAUNCH is one week today, Thursday 18th July, at The Marquis in Chandos Place, Covent Garden from 7pm. Do come, you are more than invited. More details here, but I’ll reveal a few more important elements of the evening next Tuesday.

This week’s soundtrack: The Soundtrack to Fame

This week’s e-book recommendation: The Psychopath Test – Jon Ronson

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