Suicide: The Autoimmune Disorder of the Psyche

by Vi Khi Nao

Somewhere between a journal and a report, a question and an answer, Suicide: The Autoimmune Disorder of the Psyche takes up the “only serious problem in philosophy” and submits it to the only kind of scrutiny proper to it: the personal. In arriving at this “personal” account, however, Nao detours through decidedly un-private, public cultural touchpoints—the lives of celebrities, religion, television shows, sporting events—and in doing so lays bare how even this most subjective of phenomena grows out of an endless encounter with the world. Race has a part in this encounter. So does migration. As does money. Growing out of these entanglements, queer affinities bud and bloom in this text—which, made up of pen-and-ink drawings, photographs, and Nao’s playful spin on pilish, is simultaneously constrained and unconstrained—to become the bonds that can make one want to live on.

Genres: Nonfiction

158 pages, Paperback

Published March 14, 2023

About the author

Vi Khi Nao is the author of many books and is known for her work spanning poetry, fiction, play, film, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Her forthcoming novel, The Italian Letters, is scheduled for publication by Melville House in 2024. In the same year, she will release a co-authored manuscript titled, The Six Tones of Water with Sun Yung Shin, through Ricochet. Recognized as a former Black Mountain Institute fellow, Vi Khi Nao received the Jim Duggins, PhD Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize in 2022.
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Reviews

[Eliza Guerra · Rating 5 out of 5]

A heavy read, but a gorgeous one. Everything Vi Khi Nao writes is poetic. I love books that defy genre. This one is written in prose bites with images and drawings scattered throughout. 11:11 press was a great pick to publish this work.

[Robert Mynatt]

50 or so pages of the number pi on laminate pages. The first hundred pages, though, lived up to the title of the book.

[Briana Ramirez · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a beautiful book to read.

[Xixi Liu · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was honest and bodily. Some spelling mistakes.
Glad I read it.