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Displaying 1 - 30 of 272 reviews
March 25, 2009
oh, if i could give one book to people to considering suicide, this might be it. i would also give it to anyone considering writing a memoir. so. beautiful.
so much of this is brilliant - from the questions of how even to write the book, to the difference between a biographer and a memoirist, to the emotions on every page.
set up as an index, literally, the story can't stay chronological. you know her father died, and how, but then she leads us through the painful agony of surviving a suicide, especially one that left no note (though it's clear a note probably wouldn't have made things much better).
everyone is affected, and it's so hard to see that - that while you think you might be doing people a favor, or that it's simply too hard, or whatever - it's so selfish. i wish i still had the book (got it from the library first, now have it ordered for my personal collection), because there were some quotes that were just dead on. painful and yet so true.
i highly, highly recommend this book that tries to work through death while working through life. astonishing.
so much of this is brilliant - from the questions of how even to write the book, to the difference between a biographer and a memoirist, to the emotions on every page.
set up as an index, literally, the story can't stay chronological. you know her father died, and how, but then she leads us through the painful agony of surviving a suicide, especially one that left no note (though it's clear a note probably wouldn't have made things much better).
everyone is affected, and it's so hard to see that - that while you think you might be doing people a favor, or that it's simply too hard, or whatever - it's so selfish. i wish i still had the book (got it from the library first, now have it ordered for my personal collection), because there were some quotes that were just dead on. painful and yet so true.
i highly, highly recommend this book that tries to work through death while working through life. astonishing.
October 12, 2014
The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order by Joan Wickersham is a well-written and often poignant account of Wickersham's father's suicide and its impact-or at least some of its manifold impacts-upon her.
Wickersham is a married mother when her 61-year-old father shoots himself. Wickersham spends the rest of this book-and beyond-trying to make some sense of this act and her own feelings about it. Was it foreseeable? preventable? is someone-her father, her mother, anyone-to blame or was it an over-determined event that many contributed to, perhaps, but no one exactly caused.
Some of the book is breathtakingly well-written. I found the way the book is broken into sections-"Suicide: psychiatry as an indirect means of addressing," "Suicide: philosophical conudrums stemming from" somewhat distracting, although perhaps echoing Wickersham's primary response to her father's death-numbness. Mostly I just ignored the headings and concentrated on the sections themselves which were absorbing moments in the story of her relationships with her father, mother, husband, and children (as well as friends and psychiatrists) both before and after her father's suicide.
One of the surprising (to me) experience Wickersham has is how many people have experienced the suicide of a close family member and their willingness to share that experience with her. But ultimately it seems suicide leaves survivors profoundly alone with their complex grief.
This book is not designed to give answers but to share a particular experience. Wickersham is a talented fiction writer and a gifted memoir writer. To say I enjoyed this book seems too odd so I'll say that I felt grateful to spend the time listening to Wickersham's story.
Wickersham is a married mother when her 61-year-old father shoots himself. Wickersham spends the rest of this book-and beyond-trying to make some sense of this act and her own feelings about it. Was it foreseeable? preventable? is someone-her father, her mother, anyone-to blame or was it an over-determined event that many contributed to, perhaps, but no one exactly caused.
Some of the book is breathtakingly well-written. I found the way the book is broken into sections-"Suicide: psychiatry as an indirect means of addressing," "Suicide: philosophical conudrums stemming from" somewhat distracting, although perhaps echoing Wickersham's primary response to her father's death-numbness. Mostly I just ignored the headings and concentrated on the sections themselves which were absorbing moments in the story of her relationships with her father, mother, husband, and children (as well as friends and psychiatrists) both before and after her father's suicide.
One of the surprising (to me) experience Wickersham has is how many people have experienced the suicide of a close family member and their willingness to share that experience with her. But ultimately it seems suicide leaves survivors profoundly alone with their complex grief.
This book is not designed to give answers but to share a particular experience. Wickersham is a talented fiction writer and a gifted memoir writer. To say I enjoyed this book seems too odd so I'll say that I felt grateful to spend the time listening to Wickersham's story.
August 31, 2009
“In the airport, coming home from vacation, he stops at a kiosk and buys grapefruits, which he arranges to have sent to his daughters. They will stumble over the crates waiting on their porches, when they get home from his funeral.”
Thus opens this stark and haunting memoir, written in prose that surrounded me like clear clean water.
If the best books tell truth the best, then this memoir climbs to the top of the pile SUICIDE INDEX doesn’t necessarily tell universal truths, or even grand lofty truths, it tells the intense truth of Wickersham’s experience of her family, and through her generous helping of genuineness—with no moments where this reader felt she was being fed anything shined up for the audience—the author gifts us with a read that is so present, so authentic, that I felt as though I walked beside Wickersham on her painful journey.
SUICIDE INDEX has no villains. It has no heroes (except perhaps for the mostly off-stage father of the suicide—dead long before the act takes place.) Chapters are presented as an index; a conceit of objectivity, which allows Wickersham distance to delve as honestly while taking nothing from the reader:
Suicide:
act of
attempt to imagine, 1—4
bare-bones account, 5—6
immediate aftermath, 7—34
In this before and after story of a well-loved father, the author attempts to make sense of his final act. It is also the story of Wickersham’s bristling and uneasy relationship with her mother.
The story of her father’s suicide is presented bluntly:
Wickersham’s father makes coffee.
He leaves the usual morning cup for his wife, the author’s mother.
He goes into his study and puts a gun to his mouth.
He leaves no note.
Wickersham searches for clues: Was it a brain tumor? Money owed from a sour business deal? His long-hidden depression? Did the mix of his abusive father’s emotional and physical violence and his own perceived and real failures finally form a poison strong enough to eat away at the protective lining (wife, daughters, grandson, brother, etc.) which should have precluded suicide as an option?
The twisted love Wickersham’s mother has for her husband—her vocal struggle with his never successful, and in the end tragically unsuccessful, attempts at business victory, at odds with her love and loyalty—is presented as fact, never as blame. The reader watches in horror as Wickersham’s father repeatedly tries to please his hypercritical wife. He rarely does. Even after his death she resents his stumbling. In the section labeled Suicide: life summarized in an attempt to illuminate, the author writes:
After he died, when we learned that the gun malfunctioned lightly—it put a bullet into his brain but did not fire with enough force to blow his head apart as might have been expected—my mother said, “Jesus Christ, he couldn’t even do that right.”
Joan Wickersham didn’t find the definitive answer to why her father killed himself. In the end no note was found, no secret unearthed that could explain his actions enough for the author to say, ‘oh, so that’s what happened,’ but she does a spectacular job of taking us with her on a journey not dissimilar to one most of us must take. Perhaps, like Wickersham, we try to learn why good parents killed themselves, or we question why parents couldn’t take care of themselves or us, some of us need to know how violence became such a constant visitor in our home. Or why we were neglected. But in the end, if we are lucky, we, like Wickersham, shape our past into something we can hold in our hand and our memory, and from which we can learn some measure of distance, despite how it pulls us back. Even with tragedy behind us, we learn to live with the dissonant rhythm of building our lives forward; even knowing our past always burrows inside.
September 3, 2021
This is an extraordinary book, and one that is hard to sum up. The foundational events around which the memoir is built are easy to identify. One morning Joan Wickersham's father wakes up, gets dressed, makes his breakfast, makes decaf for himself and real coffee for his wife which he leaves at her bedside, brings in the paper, walks up to his study and sticks a gun in his mouth and pulls the trigger. No note and no real warning signs (though in hindsight there were many things that might be interpreted that way.) That act then came to define Wickersham's life, her husband's and to some extent her children's lives, her mother's and sister's lives, and the lives of everyone around them. People talk about suicide these days like it is a choice every person can make for themselves and there is so fallout. For those of us who are left behind (my loss to suicide was an ex-boyfriend of many years) we know this to be untrue. Wickersham says something in the book about the term "commit suicide" which resonated now that there is a movement afoot to erase that term from language and replace it with "died by suicide." She said that people "commit suicide" against those they leave behind, that even if it is not an act of aggression it is an act of reckless indifference to the impact on those left in the rubble, those who realize they never really knew a person who was one of the most important people in their lives. (This is obviously not intended on my part to cover suicides attributable to chronic and/or terminal illness. Nobody is left to wonder about the reasons for the choice to take ones life in that case, to feel like everything that came before was a lie.)
This book is about being left in that rubble. It is about the dozen or so years following Wickersham's father's suicide, and her driving need to find answers, to put order and meaning around something so disorderly and unexplainable. The book is brutally honest, and throws into relief fractures in the "happy family" people might think they had, it tears down the lies we tell ourselves about our parents and it humanizes them, it digs into the ugly side of mother-daughter and spousal relationships, it does not shy away from vanity and self-centeredness and anger. This is it, this is what suicide leaves in its wake. This is clear-eyed, not at all sentimental or sensational, it is almost terse, and it is creative in its structure not for creativity's sake, but because the structure enhances the communicative heft of the story without defining how you, the reader, should feel. Brilliant.
This book is about being left in that rubble. It is about the dozen or so years following Wickersham's father's suicide, and her driving need to find answers, to put order and meaning around something so disorderly and unexplainable. The book is brutally honest, and throws into relief fractures in the "happy family" people might think they had, it tears down the lies we tell ourselves about our parents and it humanizes them, it digs into the ugly side of mother-daughter and spousal relationships, it does not shy away from vanity and self-centeredness and anger. This is it, this is what suicide leaves in its wake. This is clear-eyed, not at all sentimental or sensational, it is almost terse, and it is creative in its structure not for creativity's sake, but because the structure enhances the communicative heft of the story without defining how you, the reader, should feel. Brilliant.
May 10, 2009
A very powerful book about the author's father's suicide seventeen years ago. There were no obvious signs her father was considering such an act, and he left no explanatory note. Wickersham has hit on a unique and perfectly apt form for this narrative--an alphabetized index with entries such as, "Suicide: act of: attempt to imagine." There is nothing gimmicky about this choice; it is completely true to the author's inability to create any rational order or sense out of her father's death. The best she can do is to recognize that no matter how much she learns about her father's private life (and she learns a lot in subsequent years) she will never learn enough to explain away his suicide. The writing is elegant, unsentimental, and very, very honest. I admire Wickersham's talent and fortitude and will remember this account for a long, long time.
August 11, 2013
This book sounded remotely interesting, but the index format, I think, would have been more powerful if it hadn't been so specific to this author's experience, ie, if the "headings" had been more pertinent to the general experience of a loved one's--even a parent's--suicide. Yes, I realize no two loved-ones' suicides are alike, but neither is any trauma. However, that doesn't stop people from writing books that generalize about it. Plus, this format didn't put anything in any kind of order except alphabetical, which may have been the point, but then why impose some clever conceit with an overly-obvious irony that only makes the author come across as obsessive and self-important? As in, her son was three when it happened -- does any reader really need to suffer through three "chapters" describing the moral quandary she faced about when or whether to tell this toddler the truth? And let me also point out: A lot of widows (like the author's mother) act like assholes after their husbands die, even if the husbands didn't commit suicide. Summing up: whiny, self-indulgent, and a random chapter in which the author writes in an oblique, stream-of-consciousness second-person to address her psychiatrist's daughter, a figure that was unknown before this chapter and never appears in the book again.
April 18, 2009
How do you review a book on suicide? It's grim, it's sad, it's confusing . . . much like suicide. But having just experienced the death of a loved one by suicide, I found it comforting to read about someone else who understands the grief and all the other emotions that are associated with suicide. The author's idea to do an "index" is unique, but really works for this book. I found it comforting that trying to mentally reenact the person's last moments isn't some exercise in morbidity but a way to try to answer the question "why." How did they get dressed, go through the motions of the morning routine and then just end it all? The book offers no answers, but does offer companionship in the exploration of that unanswerable question.
December 10, 2009
This book caught my interest because of the arrangement in the form of an index. But the narrative turned out to be pretty linear, which made the "index" table of contents appear to be mostly a gimmick, and the narrative itself never got good enough for me to forgive the book for that.
Wickersham is writing about an issue--her father's suicide--that she has only partially worked through. A shorter piece might have been fine for that kind of unfinished emotional work, but a whole book is too long for my patience as a reader. She does not see her father with real clarity, which is fine--that's the impetus for the book--but the greater problem is that she doesn't write as though she sees herself with clarity, which made her an untrustworthy narrator for me.
For about the first half of the book, Wickersham spends a lot of space on her father's money problems, which are the type of money problems that rich people have: debt and hurt pride but nothing approaching an empty belly. I have no doubt that a failed business can cause real despair and even desperation, but it's hard for the outside observer to muster empathy. Only halfway through do we begin to learn how dysfunctional the entire family is. Wickersham explores some of the other angles, but never to a degree that I felt what she was writing had relevance to the reader. I was left with doubts that her father was not much more abusive than she lets on. She claims that he "only" hit her once, but her constant insistence that he was a nice man, despite giving faint evidence in support, reminded me of the wishful thinking of other women I've known. At best he appears in the book as a distant father and uncommunicative husband who was himself scarred by childhood abuse.
Overall, the book just lacked any insights that would make reading about someone else's family history worthwhile. I'm not asking that Wickersham solve the case of why her father committed suicide because that's most likely impossible. But she doesn't seem to make it very far on her own journey.
Wickersham is writing about an issue--her father's suicide--that she has only partially worked through. A shorter piece might have been fine for that kind of unfinished emotional work, but a whole book is too long for my patience as a reader. She does not see her father with real clarity, which is fine--that's the impetus for the book--but the greater problem is that she doesn't write as though she sees herself with clarity, which made her an untrustworthy narrator for me.
For about the first half of the book, Wickersham spends a lot of space on her father's money problems, which are the type of money problems that rich people have: debt and hurt pride but nothing approaching an empty belly. I have no doubt that a failed business can cause real despair and even desperation, but it's hard for the outside observer to muster empathy. Only halfway through do we begin to learn how dysfunctional the entire family is. Wickersham explores some of the other angles, but never to a degree that I felt what she was writing had relevance to the reader. I was left with doubts that her father was not much more abusive than she lets on. She claims that he "only" hit her once, but her constant insistence that he was a nice man, despite giving faint evidence in support, reminded me of the wishful thinking of other women I've known. At best he appears in the book as a distant father and uncommunicative husband who was himself scarred by childhood abuse.
Overall, the book just lacked any insights that would make reading about someone else's family history worthwhile. I'm not asking that Wickersham solve the case of why her father committed suicide because that's most likely impossible. But she doesn't seem to make it very far on her own journey.
March 23, 2023
I think the conceit here is the arrangement of this memoir into an index, an attempt to make sense of what is, ultimately, a senseless act. It works extremely well as a vehicle for Wickersham to contain and organize her many beautiful vignettes into a more straightforward narrative. This is a beautiful, sad book, and a good one to read if you've experienced the suicide of a loved one.
Read
March 9, 2025“And knowing that wherever I am, I am always moving, and I will never be in one place for long” (316).
Probably a 4-5 star rating
@ Malaena I’ve had this in my tbr since you recommended it to me two years ago, and just like our WhatsApp messages, even if it takes a while, I will follow through! Expect a long vn on my thoughts!! (ps I think I see where your current Myth of Sisyphus reading comes from)
Probably a 4-5 star rating
@ Malaena I’ve had this in my tbr since you recommended it to me two years ago, and just like our WhatsApp messages, even if it takes a while, I will follow through! Expect a long vn on my thoughts!! (ps I think I see where your current Myth of Sisyphus reading comes from)
Read
July 31, 2018I bought this book years ago, after I saw a conversation between Wickersham and Celeste Ng. I finally grabbed it off my shelf so I would have something to read on the train to NYC. It's a dark read, but the structure is fantastic. Wickersham, as discussed during that conversation I witnessed, struggled to make sense of her father's sudden death by suicide for years through writing--first attempting a novel, then a chronological retelling, and finally, a book of essays, structured as though it were an index of the word suicide. It could be a gimmicky organization, but it works, and it's a brilliant way of telling this multi-faceted, unresolved story.
October 24, 2014
As the title would indicate, this memoir is incredibly sad. The author is working through the suicide of her father which happened 15 years prior, but she (and consequently the reader) feel as raw as if it had happened the day before. The passage of time has only deepened the loss, and confounded her more completely. The writing is moving and organic; even "throw-away" lines are steeped in rich beauty and meaning. The organization of the text is original--an alphabetic index of subtopics of suicide. This could easily have slipped into a writing exercise--writing the memoir this way just for its own sake--but the indexing actually adds more meaning to the narrative. How COULD a daughter manage to wrap her mind around her father's suicide? There is no correct starting place, no real "beginning" to be found. The index allows for jumps in time and place, and offers a backbone for a topic that could have otherwise been jumbled in the aftermath of grief and confusion. It was an engaging read, and I finished this book in less than 48 hours. An excellent option for a book club, or simply someone in search of a memorable, affecting read.
January 13, 2009
Instead of chapters, the author put an index at the front of the book. For instance: Suicide: act of, anger about, attitude toward. Not only is this different, it actually structures the book in a more realistic way than a chronological narrative would have. Reacting to a suicide doesn't happen all at once; it's spread out over years. And Joan Wickersham does an excellent job of showing how it stalks and grabs you when you're least expecting it.
This is a book about her father's suicide, the act itself, the questions it engendered, the attempts to make sense of it (an impossible task, it seems)and the affects it had on friends and family. How do you go on with a normal life after someone you love has committed suicide? Wickersham suggests that in some ways you don't. You can never go back again to the way things were before it happened. This is true of any death, of course, but suicide is uniquely problematic. Wickersham eloquently illustrates us why.
This is a book about her father's suicide, the act itself, the questions it engendered, the attempts to make sense of it (an impossible task, it seems)and the affects it had on friends and family. How do you go on with a normal life after someone you love has committed suicide? Wickersham suggests that in some ways you don't. You can never go back again to the way things were before it happened. This is true of any death, of course, but suicide is uniquely problematic. Wickersham eloquently illustrates us why.
February 25, 2013
In its opening sections, the stylized writing and the rawness of the emotions worked beautifully together....but as the book went on I felt that the prose began to trump the emotion rather than the other way around. Maybe it just went on a little longer than it should have. I was reminded of a wise remark made by the writer Chris Noel in his bereavement memoir, In the Unlikely Event of a Water Landing, saying that some of the ways in which he experienced his grief over the loss of his fiancee were influenced as much by the fact that he was writing a book about it as by the loss itself.
July 3, 2024
I just couldn’t get into this book, I don’t know if it was the writing style or the content, but it all felt very disconnected. It jumped around without a flow, I’m not even sure what the book was trying to convey. I forced myself to finish it hoping the ending would make up for some of it but it ended poorly as well. Not for me
February 24, 2024
Very personal account, for both author and reader
I picked this book up on sale as I've known several people who died by suicide. The description of the book made this a very personal read, and i waited for the right time to read this.
The writing reminds me of T. S. Eliot at parts. This is a true story of the feelings and reactions you have after someone you know passed from suicide. It's all over the place. It's hard one moment, then sad, angry, then the next, strange or clear, and yes, even some humor which feels weird and wrong, but its there.
I liked the pivots, different feelings and different views that are both correct and incorrect at the same time. One day you become convinced of something that you dispute or find incorrect the next. It brought back alot of memories. Or more correctly, those memories are always there but it felt comforting to remember them with another person's views.
This book hit very close to home. Some were the same, others very different, but boiled down, it gave me comfort. It helped to know that others have lived through this and while we don't want others to know, when the others come to you, you feel comforted.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who had someone pass by suicide. It will help.
I picked this book up on sale as I've known several people who died by suicide. The description of the book made this a very personal read, and i waited for the right time to read this.
The writing reminds me of T. S. Eliot at parts. This is a true story of the feelings and reactions you have after someone you know passed from suicide. It's all over the place. It's hard one moment, then sad, angry, then the next, strange or clear, and yes, even some humor which feels weird and wrong, but its there.
I liked the pivots, different feelings and different views that are both correct and incorrect at the same time. One day you become convinced of something that you dispute or find incorrect the next. It brought back alot of memories. Or more correctly, those memories are always there but it felt comforting to remember them with another person's views.
This book hit very close to home. Some were the same, others very different, but boiled down, it gave me comfort. It helped to know that others have lived through this and while we don't want others to know, when the others come to you, you feel comforted.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who had someone pass by suicide. It will help.
August 6, 2025
While extremely specific to the author's experience with familial suicide (as of course, a memoir should be), I found Wickersham's account of her father's 17 years-prior to be a sympathetic and vulnerable window into the lingering questions left behind. I think much of the book was beautifully written, and I couldn't help but sympathize for her pain and efforts.
Wickersham detailed her many attempts to seek clarity as to the why's of her father's actions and to find resolution, but it feels fitting in such a personal struggle that it will forever be open-ended. The dynamic between her and her mother, her mother and father, and her father and his father all contribute to the riptide that may have finally dragged him under on such an ordinary day. Her mother is so dislikeable, even as the author is mostly charitable in her descriptions of their interactions; I admit I mentally started to assign blame even as there was a myriad of factors that contributed to the event.
I noted that many reviewers found the meandering, index-style of headings to be distracting or confusing, but maybe that added to the overall impression of one taking bulleted notes in the course of an investigation (which I felt this was).
Wickersham detailed her many attempts to seek clarity as to the why's of her father's actions and to find resolution, but it feels fitting in such a personal struggle that it will forever be open-ended. The dynamic between her and her mother, her mother and father, and her father and his father all contribute to the riptide that may have finally dragged him under on such an ordinary day. Her mother is so dislikeable, even as the author is mostly charitable in her descriptions of their interactions; I admit I mentally started to assign blame even as there was a myriad of factors that contributed to the event.
I noted that many reviewers found the meandering, index-style of headings to be distracting or confusing, but maybe that added to the overall impression of one taking bulleted notes in the course of an investigation (which I felt this was).
February 21, 2021
Beautifully written while utilizing the most unique structure- an Index- to literally try to create order out of chaos. To try to bring order to an act that disrupts every facet of life and makes you question every memory you hold. I have owned this book for years and due to the nature of the subject matter kept putting off reading it. I wish I hadn’t. It is so well done and powerful. I applaud the author for tackling this difficult subject matter with such vulnerability and honesty. It resonated with me on many levels.
June 6, 2023
I know suicide is not an uplifting topic, but I really liked this book. It's a memoir by a woman whose father committed suicide unexpectedly, and the family never really knew why. This author tries to make sense of the whole thing and the impact it had on her and her family. I thought it was fascinating.
January 12, 2021
Really good but really sad for me. I was reading it as I worked on my own mini memoir about a dear friend who committed suicide.
Whoosh. Intense.
Whoosh. Intense.
September 3, 2023
A very important book; a must-read for everyone.
March 10, 2020
A moving and bravely open exploration of what it means to be left behind after a suicide.
November 8, 2022
Loved every minute of this book.
February 1, 2023
People have been recommending this book to me for years as I've been working through writing my memoir about my dad and his unexplained death. I was finally far enough along on that journey to take on this book, and WOW, everyone was right. It helped open up my writing process and gave me lots of things to think about.
June 11, 2023
This was one of the best memoirs of any type I've ever read. The author poured her heart out and better than anything I've ever read shows what suicide does to the family left behind. It shatters them.
And yet there was a depth of compassion that forgave that shattering, even while raging about it.
An absorbing read.
And yet there was a depth of compassion that forgave that shattering, even while raging about it.
An absorbing read.
January 3, 2010
"When you kill yourself, you kill every memory everyone has of you. You’re saying ’I’m gone and you can’t even be sure who it is that’s gone, because you never knew me.’"
Recently, I've become obsessed with missing persons cases, fascinated by the idea that someone could go missing or leave with only small traces of the person they were left behind. When I first picked this book up, I didn't quite grasp the connection between Wickersham's father's confirmed suicide and the concept of the missing person made in the above passage, often cited, but I do understand it now.
This book is the author's attempt to organize, make sense of, and assign proper blame for her father's death. As she soon finds, doing this is almost impossible. She digs into her father's past, in order to find answers, and comes up with a lot of very good possible reasons but none definite. This is a common reaction in dealing with a completed suicide: you can say it's because of moral failings or relationship trouble or job loss, but you really have no idea what it was that pushed this person over the edge.
It's impossible for me to write a review and emphasize how much this book has affected me without getting personal: as someone who has struggled with diagnosed major depression for nearly 10 years, the wisdom Wickersham shares in this book is necessary. You get true insight like this into how someone deals with the inexplicable, sudden, unnatural loss of a loved one, and then the ease with which you yourself slide into those thoughts becomes much, much less easy. This is why memoir is so valuable.
From Wickersham to her father: "You did it because you felt unacceptable. But you only became unacceptable by doing it. But if "it" -- that ending, that irresistible desperation to blow yourself apart -- was encoded in you all along, secretly and inseparably part of you, then maybe you were right. If I had been able to see you clearly, maybe I would have found you unacceptable too. But I loved you. The words "acceptable" and "unacceptable" are gibberish."
....I don't even know what to add to that.
Recently, I've become obsessed with missing persons cases, fascinated by the idea that someone could go missing or leave with only small traces of the person they were left behind. When I first picked this book up, I didn't quite grasp the connection between Wickersham's father's confirmed suicide and the concept of the missing person made in the above passage, often cited, but I do understand it now.
This book is the author's attempt to organize, make sense of, and assign proper blame for her father's death. As she soon finds, doing this is almost impossible. She digs into her father's past, in order to find answers, and comes up with a lot of very good possible reasons but none definite. This is a common reaction in dealing with a completed suicide: you can say it's because of moral failings or relationship trouble or job loss, but you really have no idea what it was that pushed this person over the edge.
It's impossible for me to write a review and emphasize how much this book has affected me without getting personal: as someone who has struggled with diagnosed major depression for nearly 10 years, the wisdom Wickersham shares in this book is necessary. You get true insight like this into how someone deals with the inexplicable, sudden, unnatural loss of a loved one, and then the ease with which you yourself slide into those thoughts becomes much, much less easy. This is why memoir is so valuable.
From Wickersham to her father: "You did it because you felt unacceptable. But you only became unacceptable by doing it. But if "it" -- that ending, that irresistible desperation to blow yourself apart -- was encoded in you all along, secretly and inseparably part of you, then maybe you were right. If I had been able to see you clearly, maybe I would have found you unacceptable too. But I loved you. The words "acceptable" and "unacceptable" are gibberish."
....I don't even know what to add to that.
September 20, 2009
"A crooked, looping, labyrinthine story" - a memoir of the impact of the writer's father's suicide. Searingly honest and unflinching examination by a mature writer with an original organizational twist (yep, structured by chapter, set like an index). Frank and compelling, both in tone and in subject matter.
Wickersham writes like a writer's writer (reminded me of Richard Yates in that respect). At first, I struggled through the first quarter of the book - not that it wasn't interesting, but it was slow going. She basically states up front that they never discover the "answer", the main reason her father killed himself (he left no note). I kept with it, though, and felt completely rewarded by the chapter in the middle of the book: "Suicide: Life summarized in an attempt to illuminate." Some of the most perfect sentiments about constructing a story and constructing a life within that story, were listed in that chapter, the best expression of what being a creative non-fiction writer that I've ever encountered. If I was teaching CRW, I'd have that excerpt in every freakin' class.
On the other hand, a later chapter ("Suicide: Psychiatry as an indirect means of addressing") almost caused me to hurl the book across the room in frustration. Why, why did that chapter have to be there? Wickersham experiments with changes in points of view throughout the book - first, second, third person POV; all in one chapter, even - but in this chapter, it falls flat, it feels disruptive, so much so that I wasn't sure who the heck she was talking to. But, despite that chapter, I loved the book as a whole - completely wanted to take a class from Joan Wickersham or listen to a reading by her. She definitely has some bitter issues with her mother, but she's upfront about it (most honest towards the end, but you get the picture quickly about how things are). Highly recommended non-fiction.
Wickersham writes like a writer's writer (reminded me of Richard Yates in that respect). At first, I struggled through the first quarter of the book - not that it wasn't interesting, but it was slow going. She basically states up front that they never discover the "answer", the main reason her father killed himself (he left no note). I kept with it, though, and felt completely rewarded by the chapter in the middle of the book: "Suicide: Life summarized in an attempt to illuminate." Some of the most perfect sentiments about constructing a story and constructing a life within that story, were listed in that chapter, the best expression of what being a creative non-fiction writer that I've ever encountered. If I was teaching CRW, I'd have that excerpt in every freakin' class.
On the other hand, a later chapter ("Suicide: Psychiatry as an indirect means of addressing") almost caused me to hurl the book across the room in frustration. Why, why did that chapter have to be there? Wickersham experiments with changes in points of view throughout the book - first, second, third person POV; all in one chapter, even - but in this chapter, it falls flat, it feels disruptive, so much so that I wasn't sure who the heck she was talking to. But, despite that chapter, I loved the book as a whole - completely wanted to take a class from Joan Wickersham or listen to a reading by her. She definitely has some bitter issues with her mother, but she's upfront about it (most honest towards the end, but you get the picture quickly about how things are). Highly recommended non-fiction.
November 17, 2008
heartbreaking book written about 15 years after the author's father killed himself. She organizes it by topic, arranged in "Harper's index" form (e.g., "Suicide: attitude toward; mine"), which at first seemed a little stilted but grew on me. I ended up thinking it was much more readable this way than if she'd chosen to write a chronological bio of her Dad leading up to his tragic end.
Very insightful and thought-provoking on points such as how killing yourself kills everyone else's memories/scripts of what you were like, as the end now dominates all other memories pleasant or unpleasant as the survivors wonder what went wrong, what you weren't saying about your reaction to the seemingly good times, and so on.
Wonderful writer with a great eye for detail in presenting this profoundly sad experience.
Very insightful and thought-provoking on points such as how killing yourself kills everyone else's memories/scripts of what you were like, as the end now dominates all other memories pleasant or unpleasant as the survivors wonder what went wrong, what you weren't saying about your reaction to the seemingly good times, and so on.
Wonderful writer with a great eye for detail in presenting this profoundly sad experience.
July 10, 2017
“Maybe that’s it, maybe that’s what he is thinking, not just on this last morning but all the time: you’ve lost everything, not at a single blow but gradually, over years, a small hole in a sandbag. You see the hole clearly but you have no way to fix it. No one but you has been aware of that thin, sawdust-colored stream of sand escaping, but now enough sand has leaked that the shape of the bag is changing, it’s collapsing. It will be noticed.” Page 3
Written in an experimental form, the book is structured like encyclopedia entries:
Suicide: act of
Suicide: day after brother's appearance
Some of the entries are written 3rd person, others in 1st person, but it didn't jar me. It felt cinematic, like we are zooming in from above.
It's a great book for form, and the lyrical phrasing is simply beautiful, but the story itself will hold you.
Written in an experimental form, the book is structured like encyclopedia entries:
Suicide: act of
Suicide: day after brother's appearance
Some of the entries are written 3rd person, others in 1st person, but it didn't jar me. It felt cinematic, like we are zooming in from above.
It's a great book for form, and the lyrical phrasing is simply beautiful, but the story itself will hold you.
July 9, 2011
A truly remarkable memoir. The organization of the stories - as an index - enables the author to explore deeply a huge range of emotions, experiences, and mysteries. I stumbled upon this book when I read that Joan Wickersham was teaching a course at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown where I go to write each summer. I immediately ordered the book from my home library to pick up when I returned. I'm normally an appallingly slow reader, but I could not wait to pick the book up in the morning, and to read more "items on the index" when I went to bed. I have learned so much from reading this book, about suicide and sadness and family mysteries that can never be fully understood - and about the process of writing memoir.
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