History of a Suicide: My Sister's Unfinished Life

by Jill Bialosky

In this New York Times bestseller, Jill Bialosky, poet and author, undergoes “a profound and lyrical investigation” ( New York magazine) as she attempts to understand the events and emotional state that led her sister to commit suicide and the impact of her death on family and loved ones.

On April 15, 1990, Kim, Jill Bialosky’s younger sister, arrived home from a bar after a fight with her boyfriend. She took her mother’s keys, went into the closed garage, and turned on the ignition. Her body was discovered the next morning by a neighborhood boy.

For decades, Bialosky has grappled with the guilt, questions, and devastation that was unloosed by Kim’s suicide. Now, in this remarkable memoir, she attempts to reconstruct the complex inner life of her sister and in doing so, unlocks the nature of suicide itself and how we are each deeply affected by it.

In the course of trying to understand what drove her sister that night, Bialosky examines some of the most fundamental questions of human nature—why some of us more emotionally stable than others, even when raised in the same circumstances; how the unconscious shape our identities; what the difference is between depression and suicidal feelings; and why we sometimes fail to love and protect one another.

Combining Kim’s own personal writings with family history, medical reportage, literary criticism, and research, Bialosky has crafted “an extraordinarily valiant and resonant testimony to the healing powers of truth and empathy” ( Booklist ).

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Psychology, Biography, Death, Mental Health, Mental Illness

288 pages, Paperback

Published February 7, 2012

About the author

Jill Bialosky was born in Cleveland, Ohio. She studied for her undergraduate degree at Ohio University and received a Master of Arts degree from the Writing Seminars at The Johns Hopkins University and a Master of Fine Arts degree from University of Iowa Writer's Workshop.

Her collections of poems are Subterranean (Alfred A. Knopf, 2001) and The End of Desire (1997). Bialosky is also the author of the novel House Under Snow (2002) and The Life Room (2007) and co-editor, with Helen Schulman, of the anthology Wanting A Child (1998).

Her poems and essays appear in The New Yorker, O Magazine, Paris Review, The Nation, The New Republic, Kenyon Review, American Poetry Review among other publications.

Bialosky has received a number of awards including the Elliot Coleman Award in Poetry. She is currently an editor at W. W. Norton & Company and lives in New York City.

Reviews

[Julie Ehlers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jill Bialosky’s sister Kim, the baby of the family by at least a decade, was adored and doted on by her three older sisters, but as a young adult she seemed aimless—dropping out of college, using drugs, engaging in a less-than-healthy romantic relationship. In her early twenties, she shut herself in the garage of her mother’s home, started the car, and never walked out of there again. In History of a Suicide, Bialosky tries to figure out why.

There are things this book does very well. As a significantly older sister, Jill took on a motherly role with Kim, and the sections where she describes her relationship with Kim as a young child are absolutely heartbreaking. Her love for Kim comes through so strongly that, knowing what eventually happened, it’s incredibly painful to read about, and makes it very clear how difficult it was for Jill to lose her sister. This element of the book was very effective.

Other aspects of the book are less successful. Jill desperately wants to figure out what in Kim’s background led to her killing herself, but, as with every suicide, this will always remain something of a mystery. The possible “causes” Jill floats relate mostly to Kim’s absentee father (Jill’s stepfather); Kim’s dysfunctional relationship with her boyfriend; and Kim’s feeling of being “left behind” due to the fact that all of her (much older) sisters had left home and started their adult lives. These were, frankly, all pat generalizations that I felt did Kim a disservice, and I was disappointed that Bialosky, a poet, appeared not to understand that human beings are not that easily summed up.

Bialosky cites numerous experts and authors in her exploration of suicide, and not all of this worked for me either—in particular, reprinting Sylvia Plath’s entire poem “Daddy” in an attempt to say something about Kim’s relationship with her father was over the top and misguided, and most of the literary passages, at best, seemed there just to pad out the narrative.

Still, Bialosky’s descriptions of her relationship with her sister, and her heartfelt attempts to learn more, have stayed with me and will continue to do so. As for the less successful aspects of the book, they serve as a painful reminder that, no matter how many ways we ask a question, sometimes there is just no good answer.

[Sharron · Rating 4 out of 5]

My job involves death and often those deaths are the result of suicide. I also have loved ones who struggle with the grip of suicide. Many of the Goodread reviews have been negative regarding this book. One in particular called it messy. However, the author was very clear at the start that this was a book recounting her personal journey into finding out why her sister committed suicide and her own reflections. That is not an easy journey to undertake and is messy and emotional. I very much enjoyed this book and found some insight. The author cites many other works, some I already knew about, that I will also read. There really is no resolution in the end, no clear cut answer to "why" her sister decided to end her life. There is speculation and cross-exmaination of what could have been. I felt satisfied by this book. It doesn't give answers but I don't believe that was what I was looking for.

[Nette · Rating 2 out of 5]

Messy, overwritten, and completely useless as an analysis of suicide. She lost me right at the beginning when she used one of her own poems as a prelude. (Several more of her poems are scattered throughout the book like product placements in a movie, and she helpfully provides the poetry book title in the "notes" section in case you want to pick up a copy.) Honestly, the whole project seems like a way to show off her writing skills rather than a serious attempt to understand her sister. At one point she says about her mother, "Like so many of her generation, she lived an unexamined life." Honey, I bet your mom examined her life plenty, she just didn't feel the need to sell it for a hefty advance.

[Kate]

Crushingly banal. (But is that the point?) If you want to read about suicide/depression in order to consider it in new ways, read something else. Read William Styron's Darkness Visible. Read Kay Jamison's Night Falls Fast. Read any and all of the various works Bialosky has quoted here. She's read the expected suicide canon and has capably regurgitated it for our pleasure. Thought you might find Dante referenced? Yes, it is here. A word about Robert Lowell? That's here, too. "Hope is a thing with feathers"? You got it. And if you were wondering about Sylvia Plath, rest assured you'll find "Daddy" included here in full.

But I guess the difference between those works and this book is that this is a book about surviving suicide. The author struggles, not entirely successfully, to find words to express her sadness. Ultimately she doesn't really come to any conclusions. In a strange way, her sister Kim (who committed suicide) seems to recede into caricature by the end of the book. For all of the lengthy passages of journals quoted, for all of the author's poems immortalizing her sister's developing breasts (like apple blossoms) or her struggles with her ex-con boyfriend (in a lemon-scented room, on a princess phone), we learn very little about Kim.

The author seems to edge into conclusion territory when she repeatedly broaches the topic of women wronged by fathers who have left (through death or divorce). She has an expert do a "psychological autopsy" on Kim, who more or less determines that the cause was rejection by her father, who divorced their mother. This prompted Kim's mental life to spiral out of control, like a game of spin-the-bottle horribly gone wrong. The author stops short of placing the blame squarely upon her father's shoulders, but she comes damn close. That makes me pretty uncomfortable.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing and - dare I say - at times boring. It was all over the place, but not in an effective way.

Here are some statistics, here are some quotes from my English class books, here are some of my poems (I'm a poet), here are some stories I heard at a support group, here are some of my sister's journal entries, here are some of my concerns about mothering, here is what a suicidology expert said, and here are a lot of metaphors (like Moby Dick and my kid's fish).

As a reader, my involvement in the story and in the author's processing of her sister's suicide was constantly interrupted.

Perhaps the title of the book had created a particular expectation on my part. The story included some history, but it was not a history. It spoke more about the finished life rather than the unfinished, and some of that finished life was guesswork or the author's hopes of what had transpired. The book also felt more about the author than about her sister. (For some reason, I am reminded of Manic by Terri Cheney, who was able to document her craziness successfully and powerfully.)

The content could have been trimmer. I found it repetitive and wordy. I wonder if the statistics and related discussion could have been part of a preface. It also could have been better organized not only for the reading experience, but also for the emotional impact. It felt as if I were randomly jumping around the author's journal and her notes from English class. In this case, I think a more linear approach would have been more effective.

If this topic interests you, I recommend The Suicide Index by Joan Wickersham, The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, and Suicide by Edouard Leve. (A Widow's Story by Joyce Carol Oates is on my To Read list.)

[Leah · Rating 2 out of 5]

my kind review is - this is a very touching book about a family that has been through a very sad time by a woman who really knows the topic, both psychologically and literary-wise. and i imagine that it would be helpful if you've suffered such a horrible loss.

my unkind review is - this book is boring and isn't really enough for a story. and there were several times when i couldn't follow her logic (how is a dog biting one of your sisters before this sister is born a "harbinger" of what will happen??) and several times when i just was didn't get why she was telling me this (how is listing 5 favorite colors or favorite foods really of interest to anyone other than family members?).

hopefully, the author and her family were helped by writing this, and others can be helped by reading it.

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book like this will likely be picked up by someone who has lost a friend or family member to suicide, one who lives with the questions of why? what could I have done? This book won't answer that for anyone~it doesn't even seem that the author has been consoled after her own deconstruction of what might have happened. But it is a worthwhile look at the personal events before and after to try to understand. The author stated on a video that she didn't want to write a dark book, so she gave the suicide life. She has done just that in a thoughtful and meaningful way.

[Zoë Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The most mysterious part of grief is that you think you can will it away."

History of a Suicide: My Sister's Unfinished Life is Jill Bialosky's reflection on her sister's life, a girl who killed herself when she was only twenty two and who's family has mourned her for decades. Bialosky tells her own personal story including her struggle with miscarriages and accepting her sister's death, but also delves into the life of her sister, Kim, and what events may have lead up to her suicide. In addition, Bialosky reflects on suicide in general, talking to specialists in the field and referencing writing on the topic.

When I read An Exclusive Love by Johanna Adorjan, I felt the author was too far detached from her grandparents to have the intended impact when discussing their suicide. I was really surprised then, when History of a Suicide did not leave me with the same feeling. I think the difference is that in this book, Bialosky deals not only with the events leading up to her sister's death, but also how it impacted her own life, looking at suicide from a more general context and allowing her to reflect on the impact it has on those it leaves behind, as well as attempting to answer why people choose to commit suicide at all. Bialosky doesn't pretend to have any answers, but what she does offer is a beautifully written testament to the legacy her sister Kim left behind, both the happy and the sad memories.

The most powerful aspect of History of a Suicide is the writing, such crystal clear beauty that I was not surprised when I learned that Bialosky is also a poet. Although I had not heard of her before she does include several relevant poems of hers in the book which share the same stark imagery although tend be more abstract. Many of her phrases weaved their way into my mind, especially when she talked about why she was writing this book at all. The book includes powerful descriptions such as:

"The page has been my container, my ship; my words my compass; my memory my harpoon in my desire to wrest coherence from the unwieldy material of personal truth."

Some of my favourite excerpts come from Bialosky's writing on writing, including:

"Formulating our own words about our lives translates our interior hieroglyphics into the stories we tell ourselves to make events from our pasts more understandable, give them shape and meaning, organize the chaos of the unconscious where we most often dwell."

History of a Suicide is also littered with poems and excerpts from famous works on suicide, Bialosky references everything from Shakespeare to Sylvia Plath to a nature documentary she once watched. In this way, the message that suicide is everywhere, it is a universal pain that cannot be truly understood until it is experience, is re-enforced with startling clarity. By the time Bialosky shares her sister's suicide note the book is almost over. I had been waiting for it, anxiously, perhaps wanting to see if it shared a clue into why she killed herself. When the reader finally reaches it, it is instead absolutely heartbreaking and tragic, simple and short, she sounds so much still like a little girl. A little girl who never had the chance to grow up.

Ultimately, History of a Suicide is completely unique in that it contains memoir of Bialosky's life including the years she spent with her sister, as well hypothesis on the events leading up to Kim's death. Also included are excerpts from Kim's diary and schoolwork, as well as lists of things such as what was in her closet when she died. In addition, Bialosky reflects on suicide in literature as well as including discussion on the science behind suicide and what a person can do when they think somebody is at risk: ask. The end result of History of a Suicide is both incredibly personal and universal, leaving the reader with the powerfully true message, that despite all Bialosky has written, "the dialogue we have with the dead is never ending."

[Sue Russell · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm sure this book was comforting to many readers, but I was not the right audience for it. The constant literary allusions were annoyingly obvious and excessive in length.

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Like many people, I picked up this book looking for help understanding a tragedy in my own life, a friend's son who was just seventeen years old when he killed himself a few months ago. I wanted to get a better sense of what he might have been feeling, and what my friend must be going through now as a survivor.

I feel like a cad criticizing a book which clearly contains so much of the author’s heart and soul. But books are meant for readers, not the author, and this one failed to connect with me. The story of her sister Kim’s death is gut-wrenching, as any suicide is, but Bialosky doesn’t wring any special truths from it. The book is structured to build up suspense, as if over time Bialosky’s investigations into her sister’s life will reveal something that will help contain or explain the sorrow of her passing, but this never happens.

And throughout the book, Bialosky turns to social science and literature to widen her scope, and it is always, without fail, platitudinous, as in this excerpt: “People who end their lives are often tortured by their inability to free themselves of inner demons and by the pain they feel they are causing others. Virginia Woolf, who suffered repeated breakdowns, wrote about her worry of being a burden in her last note to her husband before she put on her overcoat, filled its pockets with stones, then walked into the River Ouse near her home and drowned herself.” Same with Bialosky’s evocations of Plath, Donne, Melville.

I was disappointed in the book, and somehow a bit more alone in my sorrow for my friend. So many people seem to like this book. How could I be so different from them?

[Diann Blakely · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I have announced previously and even obnoxiously, I normally do not assign stars to books: instead, I try to post only reviews of the same quality I would in a high-caliber print or online journal. But of how many books can one say "here, read this, for it may save your life or someone else's at some point?

Louise Kaplan’s central argument in the remarkable and too-little known FEMALE PERVERSIONS is that women unleash violence upon themselves rather than others, and HISTORY OF A SUICIDE is the arguably the best update on this particular issue. Her wince-inducing, poetic memoir attempts to puzzle out the innumerable, gaping “Whys?” that were the bequest of her step-sister, Kim. Of particular note here is that Kim, whose diaries, poems, college essays, and closet contents represent left-behind clues that lead nowhere, which is too often the case, was involved in a sometimes abusive relationship before her self-asphyxiation in the family garage. The boyfriend killed himself five years later.

Bialosky’s book took twenty years to compose, and she brings a wealth of psychological research to the subject–-or one of them, for HISTORY OF A SUICIDE could just as easily be said to be the story of an American family and how its members simultaneously cling to the loves they have found but never, of course, remain truly unscarred by the losses which life has inflicted upon them. For the survivors left behind by suicides walk around with among the largest and most irreparable holes in their hearts we can imagine.

Bialosky, a distinguished editor, poet, novelist, and essayist, also brings a lifetime of reading to her memoir, a poetic assemblage whose characters range from blood-kin to Melville’s Ishmael to Plath’s eponymous “Daddy.” (See MULTIFORMALISMS, POSTMODERN POETICS OF FORM, edited by Annie Finch and Susan M. Schulz [Textos Books] for a surprisingly fresh, if more academic, take on this particular poem.) Yet HISTORY OF A SUICIDE might just as easily be said to have, as its dramatis personae, a multitude of aching, wound-like absences, though the grace and candor with which the memoir's author has managed to discuss this highly private subject in various features and interviews is additionally astonishing. For those wishing to learn more, or to understand more fully the actions of those they know who have taken their own lives, after reading HISTORY OF A SUICIDE, I have several recommendations to offer: http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/..., http://www.cleveland.com/books/index...., http://chronicle.com/article/PoetrySu..., and last, in a highly serious turn by the English co-author of LIVE FAST, DIE YOUNG: MISADVENTURES IN ROCK & ROLL AMERICA, a recent piece from HUFFINGTON POST about the epidemic of suicide among young men in his native country and an organization called CALM, "Campaign Against Living Miserably," about which you may read more at http://www.thecalmzone.net.

As for Bialosky, I learned just today (30 October 2011) that her book has been named one of five finalists, out of five hundred entries for a "Books for a Better Life" award given annually by the Southern New York Chapter of the National MS Society (http://www.nationalmssociety.org/chap...) in the category of "Inspirational Memoir." There are many impressive names and titles, including THE LONG GOODBYE by Meghan O'Rourke, whose new book of poems, ONCE, is at my bedside this very moment and was edited and published by Bialosky herself, but fortunately, they are not having to compete against each other (!), so I can write with all truthfulness that I feel they are both profoundly deserving; having hoped at one point to review them together. THE LONG GOODBYE concerns a daughter's anguish over the slow death from colon cancer of her fifty-three-year old mother, and I have recommended it to many people as well, cancer, like suicide, robbing such a multitude of loves from our lives, and lives from those we love.

(a portion of this review was originally published as a section of "Crossings, Part Three," OPTION, 15 August 2011)

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

History of a Suicide is an analysis by Jill Bialosky of the life and subsequent death of her younger sister Kim. Bialosky sorts through her memorizes and tries to piece together the events that drove her sister to lock herself in the garage with her mother's car running. With peaks through Kim's diary, and Bialosky's frank honesty we takes a step into the lives grief has struck and journey to some understanding.

This is a difficult book to rate and review. I don't want to put a star rating on Kim's life or validate/invalidate her suffering. I also do not wish to downplay any of the grief this family has suffered, I understand that everyone grieves differently. I think that publishing this book and sharing her feelings was Bialosky's manner of coming to terms and finalizing in her mind what had happened. Several reviews here critique this choice, because the book does sometimes feel as though it is not meant for your eyes. You have to understand going into this book, that you are reading the direct inner monologue of a woman grieving the early death of her little sister. It will feel somewhat unorganized and unfinished. That's how the human brain works with these things. We as a people have not found the answer to suicide, so you cannot expect this book to tie up all loose ends. If you're still interested, then I suggest to continue on.

I really enjoyed reading this book. Though the subject matter was very dark, the prose and voice were absolutely beautiful. Bialosky has a very honest narration. Reading this book almost gave the illusion of being welcome into her home as an intimate friend. I think that closeness with the author is part of what makes the book so successful. Throughout the book, the author sprinkles her own raw poetry and some from well known poets through the ages. These too bring the emotions the book is trying to surface about. I thought the book was beautifully constructed.

Perhaps my love of this book is a little biased. I've recently lost a classmate in a similar manner. I've also had some very difficult experiences years ago where I've battled many of the same problems and thoughts that Kim has had. This book has helped me come to terms with the things I have felt years ago, and with the grief I feel today. It was very beneficial to see my own struggles with my biological father almost perfectly penned by an outside perspective. I related to Kim in more ways I can count. This book was a big step in my coming to understand my own emotions. For that, I will always rate this book well and recommend it.

[Denise Saucedo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not sure why I picked up this book to read. Maybe because it's coming close to the 14th year anniversary of my brothers death. It is always around this time that I wonder why he did what he did. Searching for answers that will never be answered because the only person that can answer them decided to end his life that gloomy day in April. Now that I am older and I have a teenage son, I am always afraid of any talk of unhappiness. I am always looking for the signs. But are there really any? We all get depressed. We all get to a point where we feel we just can't take anymore. In this book she tries to find the exact moment that her sister spiraled downhill. Very similar to my brother, a divorce, a breakup, a friend dying. I just wanted more from the story. Maybe I was just searching for MY answer. Something to help me figure it all out. A way to release the guilt I have lived with for 14 years for not ever noticing the pain he carried with him was so much more than the pain I saw or the pain I shared with him. No death is easy to cope with. But I have to say suicide might be right up there with the worst. How does a survivor move on? Carrying that emptiness and confusion inside that was once his. I only pray that he is happy and that our God is a forgiving God to let him in to the gates of heaven and dance among the angels. Maybe one day I will be brave enough to allow my mind to go back to that dreadful day and pick up the pieces of my shattered heart so that I can mend, forgive him and move forward without always asking, Why? How? I have read a few books on suicide and its always comforting to know that these feelings are normal for a survivor. It's been years since I have allowed my mind to go this far back into that traumatic day. I know this is my first step to mending.

[April Hochstrasser · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a writer trying to make sense of her sister's suicide 20 years earlier. But there is no explanation that satisfies. Most people have been depressed to some degree by the time they reach adulthood and have fleeting thoughts of "I no longer want to go on." However, most of us are able to plow through the bad times and go on. Why one person acts on those thoughts and actually goes ahead and commits suicide while in the depths of depression can only be answered by the person who did it and they are gone. If they didn't leave a note or announce their intentions beforehand, those left behind struggle to find peace for the rest of their lives. The biggest question is of course, what could I have done to prevent this? I did not like the poetry intermixed with the prose. It was off-putting to me. However, I think this book would be worthwhile for someone like Jill Bialosky, who has had someone close to them commit suicide. Her struggle to find answers and her final conclusion that there is no answer, might give someone else comfort.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw this book at Barnes and Noble on a feature table years ago and added it to my TBR shelf. I finally picked up a copy and got into the sad headspace of grief, loss, and the unthinkable end of suicide.

I am a generally content person. I have a good life. I am good at looking at the glass and finding it half full, and not worrying how it will be refilled (it will, I just take it on faith). So suicide confuses me. I want to better understand how someone can see that not only as an option, but THE option. The way out. I really want to understand the darkness so I can possibly help others. Books like this one give me a partial glimpse into a different perspective. Plus, and if you know me at all you know how true this is, I love a good cry.

I wish I could help everyone who has ever contemplated suicide see how life is precious and precarious enough without ending it early. And that you are all loved. But I can't, so instead I seek to better understand. Much like the survivors left behind, some questions can never be answered. 3 stars.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about the journey the author is traveling in continuing to deal with the suicide of her sister 20 years after the fact. She attemps to justify the reasoning behind her sister taking her own life at the age of 21. The book is very insightful. However, I did not agree with A LOT of her rationalization and I only hope she finds resolution and acceptance someday. Heart wrenching. There are no easy answers. Rest in peace dear "Kim."

[Meghan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I stopped reading at page 106 and set it aside. Despite having intimate experience with the topic having lost my mother to suicide, I could not connect with this book and struggle to understand how it ended up on The New York Times best sellers list. Some questions just don’t have answers and the authors search and her imposing her assumptions onto her sister and her sisters life just didn’t work for me.

[Kathleen Brunnett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although it was a very deep and at times depressing read, I learned quite a bit. It was fascinating to take this journey with the author. I especially liked how she wove quotes and sections from other authors/poets into her writings.

Of course I was always hoping the author would find the "answer" to her sister's drastic choice, but alas no. The horror of suicide will always haunt the living.

[Pennylope · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book tried to do too much. To recount the history of the author's sister's life leading up to her suicide, while tying in literary suicide references, and finally sprinkling of psychological researh on suicide. I found it disjointed and lacking a commitment or followthrough to any one of those three things.

[Elizabeth Boquet · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I saw this book was blurbed by Joan Wickersham, I was encouraged. If you haven’t read Wickersham’s THE SUICIDE INDEX, go directly to it. By contrast, Bialosky’s HISTORY OF A SUICIDE is disappointing. I can appreciate how difficult it is to write about this kind of loss. On top of that, Bialosky drops several other story bombs at the beginning of the book (no spoilers!) that as a reader are very hard to get past and made me think a book that examined loss more broadly might have been better written. Finally, the incorporation of literary texts throughout was very clunky and read more like a student essay (of which I have read thousands) than a polished manuscript. The Freudian/MOBY DICK analysis at the end is especially lacking. I wish I had better things to say about this book. My heart breaks for her and her family and, without a doubt, she loved her little sister and wonders what, if anything, she could have done to save her. There are no good answers. I know the feeling.

[Mary K · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author endured the tragic death of her sister and two babies. The writing started out beautifully but early on there was so much conjecture about her sister’s life that she lost me

[SwensonBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I picked up Jill Bialosky's new book, I thought: finally, someone who might understand, someone who might have answers. Suicide makes for a different kind of grief. An incomprehensible one: your mind can’t find its logic. Even though our losses and circumstances are quite different, her story resonated with my own journey toward acceptance, forgiveness and reconciliation. Jill Bialosky tries to understand why her sister, Kim, took her own life at the age of 21 in 1990. During the past 20 years, Bialosky has been an editor at W.W. Norton as well as an acclaimed poet and novelist, nursing along her own brilliant memoir of grief.

As a reader, I rode a wave of grief memoirs that began with The Year of Magical Thinking and continues today with A Widow's Story. Other fine examples include The Long Goodbye, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship, Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs, and Here If You Need Me: A True Story. Local Ithaca author Diane Ackerman has recently published, One Hundred Names for Love, a memoir of anticipatory grief.

The deaths of husbands, mothers, fathers, children, friends, even pets, have been the subject of touching, recent, bestselling memoirs that affirm readers who suffer similar kinds of losses and create compassion in those who can’t even imagine. But none of these recent books tells a story about losing a loved one to suicide.

History of a Suicide begins with the simple facts surrounding her sister’s suicide in 1990 and opens up a narrative on the impact suicide has on those who remain behind. The book starts out like a good mystery or detective story. Jill Bialosky wrote this page-turner in plain language. She weaves together her sister’s diaries and the words of Melville, Dickinson, Wallace Stevens and Sylvia Plath across the weft of words from doctors and psychologists. The author speaks straight into the reader’s heart with unflinching bravery. A voice filled with emotional honesty, Jill Bialosky offers reader both solace and clarity.

In 1897, Durkheim, the father of sociology, published Suicide. He studied the death statistics of France over time and discovered patterns in the aggregated cases. Downturns in the economic market, health epidemics, prospects of war and other social factors correlated to rates of suicides. What predisposing conditions, what circumstantial events, what triggers in social relations lead to self-annihilation? After more than a century we seem to know less, not more about why.

Jill Bialosky doesn’t find the answers in social demographic factors or family dysfunction. The abandonment of Kim’s father at an early age and their mother’s depression are tragic elements, but not explanations. Bialosky offers a profoundly personal and poetic investigation of her sister’s death. Part psychological autopsy, part love letter to Kim’s unfinished life, Bialosky’s memoir mirrors the minds of those loved ones left in the wake of suicide. While the details of her story are unique, the relentless search for meaning is not.

The unanswered questions left in the wake of such an unexpected end haunt survivors. Bialosky writes beautifully and sensitively about this quiet quest. She will never really know what it was like for Kim in those final moments, or, if anyone had done anything differently, would it have changed the trajectory of her sister’s short life. For all the forensic analysis applied to one young woman’s decision to end her life before it had really begun, at the end there is only the mystery. The reader is left with a sense that this feeling of no end to the “what ifs” is central to grieving in a way distinct from all other kinds of grief.

Twenty years of mourning Kim makes her an expert on what happened and how, not why. Bialosky helps the reader understand Kim and the inevitability of her death. Without judgment and filled with compassion, she lets Kim tell her own story and she shares her own with these opening words: “Kim’s suicide has forever altered the way in which I respond to the world around me.”

[Dewitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

HISTORY OF A SUICIDE by Jill Bialosky
Atria, 2011; 248pp; 978-1-4391-0193-3


This literary memoir offers many treasures, and both in its complicated emotions and resonant language belongs in a class with Elizabeth McCraken’s AN EXACT REPLICA OF A FIGMENT OF MY IMAGINATION. Both are grief-driven, although in McCraken’s case it is for a still-born fetus, and in Bialoski’s for a teen-aged, younger sister, who has committed suicide. 1) There is the primary narrative mission: the writer’s need and effort in weighing the life of a younger sister while trying to imagine how she could have felt in asphyxiating herself at the age of 16. Bialosky herself was 31 at that time, married, a poet and editor working in Manhattan. 2) There is also the effort self-examination: why couldn’t I have seen this coming and prevented it (of course, A. Alvarez in his classic meditation on suicide, THE SAVAGE GOD, argues that suicides are karmic and that there can be neither intervention nor blame). 3) There is Bialosky’s use of literature as a way to think, to grieve, and to grapple with the tragedy and its aftermath. 4) There is the evocation, at times Nabokovian, of childhood memories and the family context. 5) There is objective information about the nature of suicide in general, appealing to survivors, as a topic, although there is little cautionary condemnation of our culture or society as there is in say Mary Pipher's 1994 REVIVING OPHELIA (“I was struck by what a girl-poisoning culture it was”).
Bialowsky has faced crushing personal losses herself. Her father’s death by accident; the desertion of her stepfather, whom she loved; an abortion before Kim’s suicide; then Kim’s suicide, and shortly after the death of a premature baby; then a year later, the death of another and news that she couldn’t bear children. Still, she has gone on. She has had her husband’s love. They have adopted. But given her resilience: how to understand Kim’s lack of it, in the face of desertion by a birth father, and later transient boy friends, an abortion, drugs, and a physically abusive boyfriend?
It is a triumph that such a book gets written, and criticism seems impertinent. The book has been justly celebrated in reviews. But alongside beautifully written and resonant passages, there are lapses into slack prose, sentimentality, and inert documents and facts.
One of the instructive features throughout is the act of the mind in finding what will suffice, particularly through the prism of literature and through writing itself. On the topics of suicide, tragedy, and grief, Bialosky finds urgent meaning in literature, especially in MOBY DICK.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Powerful memoir about a women dealing with her sister’s suicide (Merry Christmas – sheesh, nice pick for this time of year). If you’re not bawling your eyes out by page 25 there’s something wrong with you. This book is part memoir, part study. The author takes a very intellectual approach to everything, even though her pain is very evident. It’s amazing the strength of this pain and its effects on the entire family nearly twenty years later. The writing is strong and beautiful. The author is a poet, which is wholly unsurprising. She writes something about smiles in a photograph being hooks into her skin.

If you’re looking for a salacious glimpse into a suicidal young woman’s mind, this is not the book for you. As I mentioned, it’s more intellectual, more academic. I did learn quite a bit. Mostly I learned how important a father figure is and I’m grateful my children have such a good one. I guess I should back off on all the “be easy on them, you’ll give them daddy issues” jokes I make with my husband. I do think the author should’ve used less of her sister’s own journal entries. Not only are they intensely private but they make her seem very immature.

The author has been through a lot. I think this book would be great comfort to someone surviving a loved one’s suicide. I also believe the author could write another memoir based on other parts of her life. There are some things in this book equally or more affecting than her sister’s death.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yep, the title of this book says it all. The author's sister killed herself at the age of 20. Subsequently, the author has spent some 20+ years trying to figure out why.

It's about as sad as you might imagine. I've read quite a few things about suicide and, to me, it seems like there really aren't any answers, at least none that will ever be satisfactory to the people who are left behind. However, I've been fortunate enough to have never lost someone close to suicide. So what do I know?

I wonder if anyone will ever find an answer to the simple question of: why this person, and not that person. Two different people can have equally horrible things happen in their lives. One will commit suicide; the other won't. Why? The answer to this seems ephemeral, ungraspable. And I think that's why books like this can sometimes feel disappointing. Ultimately, when the sister's life is laid bare, things don't seem to have been that bad for her. She could have persevered. She didn't have to die, but she did, and no one but her will ever truly understand why she felt it was what she needed to do. The answer is unsatisfying for the author, and so to for us.

This book doesn't have any more insight into suicide than any other book about the topic that I've read. I'm neither recommending it nor not recommending it. If it sounds interesting to you, read it. But if you're a sap like me, be prepared to cry.

[Darnell · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book wasn't really a forensic psychology study as hinted in its description and simply the author's cathartic release. Bialosky spends more time speculating than researching. Instead of finding old friends of her sister or her boyfriend, who killed himself a couple years later (a fact we learn as an afterthought), she spends a LOT of time filling in the blanks by starting paragraphs with statements like "I imagine she felt..." This is just an attempt to paint a picture of a damaging relationship that the author had not been able to observe first-hand because she was, understandably, an adult starting her own life.

Then there's the poems. Yikes. The author is a poet by trade, but that doesn't excuse posting several poems written by herself, her sister and even Plath. They provided no insight and drove the narrative straight into the ground.

HISTORY OF A SUICIDE covers a tragic event indeed, but as Bialosky provides more information about Kim, including an absentee father, abusive boyfriend, drug abuse and expressions of hopelessness in her sister's diary and poetry going back to her teen years, one doesn't need to be a forensic psychologist to answer the question of "why." It's sounds callous, but unfortunately this lacked any kind of new insight into suicide.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually quite liked this book but I don't know if that is a good thing, considering the title. The writers youngest (half) sister commits suicide in her 20's and nearly 20 years later, the author writes this book to sort of deal with it all. I'll just say the thing I liked least about this book was the poetry sprinkled throughout, mainly because I don't understand it at all, ever. But I glossed over it and otherwise found the story interesting.

What I got out of it, was the author trying to figure out why her sister did what she did. Not who to blame, but figure out if anything could have been done differently would the outcome have been different? And the answer that I got out of it, was yes. She blames her sister's father for not being around most of her life. Their mother had major issues which did not help and the author and her two other sisters all had the same father and were closer in age and the youngest sister was younger by a fair amount. But really, the author blames her ex-step-father for everything. The book was a good mix of clinical and just chattiness about the topic of suicide and found the whole thing very interesting.

[Perkimom · Rating 2 out of 5]

While interesting and obviously cathartic to the author, I kept coming back to my own view of suicide being a personal choice and the choice respected. In essence, take Robin Williams. He was our hero, our clown, our release, yet he was in horrific pain and chose to end his life. I cannot believe this act selfish as he did not owe me his persona or his life. I have been effected by suicide and know those left behind always wonder why and what if. Ultimately, I believe a person who commits suicide did not want others to hurt or question....they just wanted to end. Each reader will ultimately find their way through grief, but I have seen too many suicide attempts and the horror of the person when they find they did not succeed. Again, people question. There are no answers.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

History of a Suicide by Jill Bialosky explores the aftermath after Bialosky's youngest sister Kim commits suicide. Instantly engaging and so approachable that the reader is tangibly inducted into Bialosky's family's grief and loss. Not an easy read, this memoir also includes some of Kim's own letters in order to better illustrate her struggle. Bialosky asserts early on in her story that she wanted to write about Kim for two reasons: to redeem and honor her. Through this book she succeeds on both counts. This book is also sure to enlighten readers about suicide and hopefully open dialogue on a dangerously taboo topic.

[Koz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never would've anticipated this being a five-star. I love nonfiction and biography and memoir. I thought this would be that, and it is. But it's a lot more than that. The education is equal in importance as the entertainment. I am well educated about mental health and suicide, but I learned a whole lot from this book. The way the author mixes the info with the story of her sister is incredible. I can't imagine how overwhelmed I would feel trying to write this book.

I can't stress enough how educational and helpful and informative this is. And of course, emotional and heart wrenching.