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Companion to an Untold Story
When Marcia Aldrich’s friend took his own life at the age of forty-six, they had known each other many years. As part of his preparations for death, he gave her many of his possessions, concealing his purposes in doing so, and when he committed his long-contemplated act, he was alone in a bare apartment.
In Companion to an Untold Story , Aldrich struggles with her own failure to act on her suspicions about her friend’s intentions. She pieces together the rough outline of his plan to die and the details of its execution. Yet she acknowledges that she cannot provide a complete narrative of why he killed himself. The story remains private to her friend, and out of that difficulty is born another story― the aftershocks of his suicide and the author’s responses to what it set in motion.
This book, modeled on the type of reference book called a “companion,” attempts to find a form adequate to the way these two stories criss-cross, tangle, knot, and break. Organized alphabetically, the entries introduce, document, and reflect upon how suicide is so resistant to acceptance that it swallows up other aspects of a person’s life. Aldrich finds an indirect approach to her friend’s death, assembling letters, objects, and memories to archive an ungrievable loss and create a memorial to a life that does not easily make a claim on public attention. Intimate and austere, clear eyed and tender, this innovative work creates a new form in which to experience grief, remembrance, and reconciliation.
In Companion to an Untold Story , Aldrich struggles with her own failure to act on her suspicions about her friend’s intentions. She pieces together the rough outline of his plan to die and the details of its execution. Yet she acknowledges that she cannot provide a complete narrative of why he killed himself. The story remains private to her friend, and out of that difficulty is born another story― the aftershocks of his suicide and the author’s responses to what it set in motion.
This book, modeled on the type of reference book called a “companion,” attempts to find a form adequate to the way these two stories criss-cross, tangle, knot, and break. Organized alphabetically, the entries introduce, document, and reflect upon how suicide is so resistant to acceptance that it swallows up other aspects of a person’s life. Aldrich finds an indirect approach to her friend’s death, assembling letters, objects, and memories to archive an ungrievable loss and create a memorial to a life that does not easily make a claim on public attention. Intimate and austere, clear eyed and tender, this innovative work creates a new form in which to experience grief, remembrance, and reconciliation.
- GenresMemoirNonfiction
280 pages, Hardcover
First published September 15, 2012
1 person is currently reading
81 people want to read
About the author
Marcia Aldrich
16 books24 followersI was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and raised in that very spot by my parents and half sisters, a story told in "Girl Rearing." I graduated from Pomona College, earned a doctorate in English at the University of Washington, and now teach creative writing at Michigan State University. From 2008 to 2011 I edited "Fourth Genre," one of the premiere literary journals featuring personal essays and memoirs. In spring 2010 I was the Mary Routt Chair of Writing at Scripps College in Claremont, California (where I lived in the Hut with goldens Omar and Quin), and in that same year was named Distinguished Professor of the Year by the Presidents Council, State Universities of Michigan.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
May 20, 2013
Aldrich's book explores the life and death of a friend of the author, a man who carefully planned for and then took his own life. The book is as much about the author's own sense of mourning, anger, and confusion brought on by the suicide as it is about the man who has died. His preparations for death are meticulous, as he slowly gives away every possession he owns, says his goodbyes, and finally takes his life in his completely empty apartment. Aldrich asks the questions many of us ask when a loved one takes his or her own life: why didn't I see the signs? Could I have helped if he'd asked? Could I have stopped him? The book is constructed in short, alphabetically ordered chapters, and doesn't approach the story in a linear fashion. The story of the suicide is told in non-sequential pieces, and though they do add up to a complete story, they cannot add up to any real answers. Aldrich, as a survivor, can only guess at the answers.
December 10, 2012
Not every writer would be able to pull off a book like this, and I don't know how much attention Aldrich has received for her effort — apart from winning the AWP Award for Creative Nonfiction — but I suspect that it isn't what it deserves. Yet, Companion to an Untold Story is not a project that set out wishing for accolades. (Let's be honest, writers, we won't turn down praising-recognition of our work.) Though I can only infer her intentions, it seems to me that Aldrich wanted this book to be the best way she could memorialize her friend, and in that, find some acceptance. That others may identify and find value in it, I imagine, is but a wonderful gift.
(My full review can be found at Glorified Love Letters.)
(My full review can be found at Glorified Love Letters.)
November 9, 2025
dnf
The conceit of this book was interesting: telling the story of a friend's life and suicide through an alphabetical primer, with different headings like "X-ray" and "Unclaimed Baggage Center." Each "entry" tells a tiny story and, presumably, they add up to a full tale. This definitely a creative approach to storytelling, but it got fairly tiresome and it was hard for me to keep track of things. Additionally -- and I hate to speak ill of the dead -- I didn't particularly like the man being described. He seemed pretty insufferable. It's hard to tell how much of that was ego, versus attitude, versus mental illness, but I would not have liked him, so I wasn't particularly invested in his story. This book and the man it chronicles were a bit too much for me.
P.S. The main thing I'll remember from this book is that the author kept and used the same mattress for 20 years. Marcia, that is disgusting.
The conceit of this book was interesting: telling the story of a friend's life and suicide through an alphabetical primer, with different headings like "X-ray" and "Unclaimed Baggage Center." Each "entry" tells a tiny story and, presumably, they add up to a full tale. This definitely a creative approach to storytelling, but it got fairly tiresome and it was hard for me to keep track of things. Additionally -- and I hate to speak ill of the dead -- I didn't particularly like the man being described. He seemed pretty insufferable. It's hard to tell how much of that was ego, versus attitude, versus mental illness, but I would not have liked him, so I wasn't particularly invested in his story. This book and the man it chronicles were a bit too much for me.
P.S. The main thing I'll remember from this book is that the author kept and used the same mattress for 20 years. Marcia, that is disgusting.
February 2, 2019
Loved everything about Aldrich's approach to writing on a heavy topic.
November 2, 2016
Companion to an Untold Story is written like a dictionary of sorts, with each entry being in alphabetical order, but instead of being single words and their definitions, it’s written with phrases or words that spark memories from the writer, Marcia Aldrich about her friend Joel and his long planned suicide. The very first entry, titled “Age at Death,” tells readers Joel was just forty-six, and the passage illuminates the bland, uncaring feeling of an obituary entry. The final entry is a poem by Aldrich’s husband, Richard, written nearly twenty years before Joel committed suicide; its title, “Zen Suicide,” with its message about being raised by his mother who was now old, and his inability to swallow the muzzle.
Throughout the pages of this “companion,” Aldrich tells Joel’s story as best as she knew it, her husband having known him since childhood and their friendship, though only diminished by distance and years, continued until his death. She tells of his job as a substitute teacher, the one woman he loved whom he met at the University of Utah, and the various letters he had written to each of them throughout the years. Aldrich reveals the darker side of his life, the letter that claimed he hated everything, the small crop of friends he had to which he gave everything before he left this world, and the impact his actions had on her, Richard, and Joel’s other friends after he had gone.
This is a tale of woe, of sadness and depression, of a man who felt, “all in all living has seemed an unjustifiable extravagance,” but it is also beautiful and silently pleas for readers to appreciate the life of their friends, and be aware of their own existence. My feelings on this story run deep, having experienced suicides and attempted suicides in my small circle of friends and infinite circle of family, and just as Aldrich demonstrates, you never really feel okay about what happened, and you may always blame yourself in some manner. For Aldrich, she felt like she should have read the signs: his giving away all his possessions, his increasingly distant behavior and feelings of “an abysmal sense of futility.” I was left feeling sympathy for Joel because his life was a sad and unfulfilling one, a feeling I think many people have, but never vocalize or attempt to change. When his love left him, he slept on a couch the rest of his life. He cleared his home of everything that made it a home, leaving on the requirements of his deed; he sent his suicide note to the police along with the house key, so they would be the ones to find him, alone in his bathroom. His bathroom was the place he had his daily cleansing, and the place he made his final cleansing.
I definitely recommend this story to anyone who has experienced something of this nature, for anyone who has felt life is a bother, not because this tale will make you feel warm and fuzzy, or that it will even help in any way at all, but because it is important to feel other people’s pain, to know that others experience doubt and denial and desperation in their lives. Feeling pain is the human experience, and we should recognize this and stop trying to run from it. Aldrich shares two pieces she wrote after Joel’s death, one that describes the fallacy in which we live where everyone is happy and no one speaks of death or sadness, saying, “if job are dreaded and children are crying themselves to sleep…if suicide is being contemplated, planned or executed, I don’t know it,” and the other piece written once she realized she must remain in control of herself because she has the ability to harm others, just as anyone does. This is a story that has the potential to touch many people in ways Aldrich never imagined, and it is my hope that she has been able to properly cope and accept the death of her dear friend.
Throughout the pages of this “companion,” Aldrich tells Joel’s story as best as she knew it, her husband having known him since childhood and their friendship, though only diminished by distance and years, continued until his death. She tells of his job as a substitute teacher, the one woman he loved whom he met at the University of Utah, and the various letters he had written to each of them throughout the years. Aldrich reveals the darker side of his life, the letter that claimed he hated everything, the small crop of friends he had to which he gave everything before he left this world, and the impact his actions had on her, Richard, and Joel’s other friends after he had gone.
This is a tale of woe, of sadness and depression, of a man who felt, “all in all living has seemed an unjustifiable extravagance,” but it is also beautiful and silently pleas for readers to appreciate the life of their friends, and be aware of their own existence. My feelings on this story run deep, having experienced suicides and attempted suicides in my small circle of friends and infinite circle of family, and just as Aldrich demonstrates, you never really feel okay about what happened, and you may always blame yourself in some manner. For Aldrich, she felt like she should have read the signs: his giving away all his possessions, his increasingly distant behavior and feelings of “an abysmal sense of futility.” I was left feeling sympathy for Joel because his life was a sad and unfulfilling one, a feeling I think many people have, but never vocalize or attempt to change. When his love left him, he slept on a couch the rest of his life. He cleared his home of everything that made it a home, leaving on the requirements of his deed; he sent his suicide note to the police along with the house key, so they would be the ones to find him, alone in his bathroom. His bathroom was the place he had his daily cleansing, and the place he made his final cleansing.
I definitely recommend this story to anyone who has experienced something of this nature, for anyone who has felt life is a bother, not because this tale will make you feel warm and fuzzy, or that it will even help in any way at all, but because it is important to feel other people’s pain, to know that others experience doubt and denial and desperation in their lives. Feeling pain is the human experience, and we should recognize this and stop trying to run from it. Aldrich shares two pieces she wrote after Joel’s death, one that describes the fallacy in which we live where everyone is happy and no one speaks of death or sadness, saying, “if job are dreaded and children are crying themselves to sleep…if suicide is being contemplated, planned or executed, I don’t know it,” and the other piece written once she realized she must remain in control of herself because she has the ability to harm others, just as anyone does. This is a story that has the potential to touch many people in ways Aldrich never imagined, and it is my hope that she has been able to properly cope and accept the death of her dear friend.
November 12, 2012
This is a careful consideration of the consequences suicide causes. It holds no answers to what it admits is the central human question. Why live if life is absurd? It presents the concern with a combination of stoicism, lyricism and meta-narrative that offers a reading experience I imagined to be akin to the suicidal's self-consciousness wrapped inside a survivor's enigmatic guilt. There is mastery here where metaphor sings long-after its presentation (e.g. The observation of fledgling eagles killing to survive, battered telescopes and an inherited lover's water-bed converted to foam despite the manufacturer's misspelled demand it only contain natural material). I really loved this book. It excites me because the writer attended to me as a reader and invited me to a poetic that was concerned both with subject and form. The construction of the narrative, borrowing from C++ computer coding to create clumsy "hyper-links" within the story, gave the content a depth that heightened its theme of offering literary companionship to one man's mostly unattended story. It is a work worthy of the melancholy attendant in Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" (referenced well within the work) where "attention must be paid" to suicide's broken and difficult humanity.
March 31, 2016
I blogged about this book, because it had me thinking so deeply and in important ways. Here's the link to the post: http://applewordkiss.blogspot.com/201...
But in case you don't want to read that, just read the paragraph I quoted, which is so wise and smart I'm still thinking about it:
"In the rituals of mourning, we substitute a final resting place, even one so unmarked as the sea, for the actual place of death. We do so to write over the terrible image of trauma. Substitution of place is our profound device in death and its aftermath. The image of final burial comforts us because we, the survivors, compose it. It is authored rather than thrust upon us, already engraved. Choice of the place and manner of burial gains us composure against the suddenness of tragedy. Those who were lost are no longer lost: they are laid to rest. Meanwhile, the rituals of cremation purify the image of autopsy. The work of mourning is incomplete without a final substitution ('So Lycidus, sunk low, but mounted high')." --Marcia Aldrich, from Companion to an Untold Story, "Disposition of the Body," pp. 69-70
But in case you don't want to read that, just read the paragraph I quoted, which is so wise and smart I'm still thinking about it:
"In the rituals of mourning, we substitute a final resting place, even one so unmarked as the sea, for the actual place of death. We do so to write over the terrible image of trauma. Substitution of place is our profound device in death and its aftermath. The image of final burial comforts us because we, the survivors, compose it. It is authored rather than thrust upon us, already engraved. Choice of the place and manner of burial gains us composure against the suddenness of tragedy. Those who were lost are no longer lost: they are laid to rest. Meanwhile, the rituals of cremation purify the image of autopsy. The work of mourning is incomplete without a final substitution ('So Lycidus, sunk low, but mounted high')." --Marcia Aldrich, from Companion to an Untold Story, "Disposition of the Body," pp. 69-70
April 4, 2016
Companion To An Untold Story, written by Marcia Aldrich is a heart tugging creative nonfiction piece written in ABC form. While working your way through the alphabet, one comes to learn about the life of the author, her husband, and the life and work up to and aftermath of her friend’s suicide. Throughout the book, the reader continuously learns more about the life of the narrator and the friend whom she is grieving the loss of. The book is almost in a threaded form as well, as the narrator transitions back and forth from her family life to that of her friend and ultimately his elaborate, well thought out, plan to end his life. This novel is not an easy read for anyone whom might have recently lost someone to suicide or whom might currently be struggling with suicidal ideations, but it is remarkably written and extremely powerful. The reader ends with a sense of closure after walking through the grief process with the narrator. I highly recommend this book for anyone looking for a nonfiction piece of its kind!
November 29, 2012
It took me several tries to get into this, probably because of the form. While it's something different, and aptly conveys the confusion and disarray of grief, it felt like it was lacking something. While being incredibly personal, it was also very distant, which may have been the thing that bothered me most.
August 5, 2013
Companion blends the freedom of a choose-your-own-adventure story with the somber content of the loss of a close friend. The format is engaging and expertly executed. The matter-of-fact nature of the entries tell as much with their silences as with their facts.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews