Score

Hi,
I thought Ken Steele had a heart attack.

The form to add books to the list is at the right-hand side of the page.

Cicero was killed.

The jury is still out (and probably always will be) on whether Primo Levi killed himself.

kissmyshades wrote: "Cicero was killed."

Yes, I removed his book.

Christine wrote: "The jury is still out (and probably always will be) on whether Primo Levi killed himself."

From Wikipee:

...However, Oxford sociologist Diego Gambetta has argued that the conventional assumption of Levi's death by 'suicide' is not well justified by either factual or inferred evidence.[30:] Levi left no suicide note, and no other clear indication that he had thoughts of taking his own life. ... Rita Levi Montalcini, a close friend of Levi, commented that "If Levi wanted to kill himself he, a chemical engineer by profession, would have known better ways than jumping into a narrow stairwell with the risk of remaining paralyzed." ... The matter remains unresolved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primo_Levi

Hazel wrote: "Hi,
I thought Ken Steele had a heart attack."

Ken Steele DID have a heart attack. *deletes book*

Jack London, too, probably didn't commit suicide but died of uremia, possibly aggravated by a morphine overdose. From Wikipedia:

"Many older sources describe London's death as a suicide, and some still do. This conjecture appears to be a rumor, or speculation based on incidents in his fiction writings. His death certificate gives the cause as uremia, following acute renal colic, a type of pain often described as "the worst pain [...] ever experienced", commonly caused by kidney stones. Uremia is also known as uremic poisoning.

London died November 22, 1916, in a sleeping porch in a cottage on his ranch. He was in extreme pain and taking morphine, and it is possible that a morphine overdose, accidental or deliberate, may have contributed to his death. The biographer Stasz writes, "Following London's death, for a number of reasons, a biographical myth developed in which he has been portrayed as an alcoholic womanizer who committed suicide. Recent scholarship based upon firsthand documents challenges this caricature."

London's fiction featured several suicides. In his autobiographical memoir John Barleycorn, he claims, as a youth, to have drunkenly stumbled overboard into the San Francisco Bay, "some maundering fancy of going out with the tide suddenly obsessed me". He said he drifted and nearly succeeded in drowning before sobering up and being rescued by fishermen. In the dénouement of The Little Lady of the Big House, the heroine, confronted by the pain of a mortal gunshot wound, undergoes a physician-assisted suicide by morphine.

London had been a robust man but had suffered several serious illnesses, including scurvy in the Klondike. At the time of his death, he suffered from dysentery and uremia and late stage alcoholism. During travels on the Snark, he and Charmian may have picked up unspecified tropical infections. Most biographers, including Russ Kingman, now agree he died of uremia aggravated by an accidental morphine overdose."

I feel really depressed after reading this list.

Bensley56 wrote: "I feel really depressed after reading this list."

If it makes you feel any better... there are several repeats on this list. (I wonder if the painters/musicians list would be longer...)

John Kennedy Toole! Confederacy of Dunces

For some reason, this list kind of gives me hope.

I'm going to unvote my Primo Levi books. There's evidence he may have, and evidence he may not have, killed himself, and without definitive proof I'm not willing to put that label on him. Perhaps we should remove him from the list altogether.

What about Spaulding Gray?

Janet, Add Spaulding yourself if you like. I haven't read any of his books.

Lobstergirl, I'm actually with you on Primo Levi. I'm not at all convinced he killed himself. Throwing yourself down a flight of stairs is a terrible method of suicide, and the man was a chemist; he had better ways.

Robert E Howard
Ned Vizzini
Don Carpenter
Klaus Mann
Vsevolod Garshin
Horacio Quiroga
Frank Stanford

Added Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. So long, Bourdain.

Helen wrote: "Robert E Howard
Ned Vizzini
Don Carpenter
Klaus Mann
Vsevolod Garshin
Horacio Quiroga
[author:Frank St..."
Richard Brautigan

Interesting list. Of some writers I knew they committed suicide, like Sylvia Platt and Yukio Mishima, but of most I didn't, like Ernest Hemingway, Yasunari Kawabata, Sándor Márai, Petronius, Stefan Zweig, or the Dutch Piet Paaltjens, for instance.

Arthur Schnitzler died of a brain hemorrhage, so I took his books off the list. Some of the other authors are disputed, like Yasunari Kawabata, Klaus Mann, and Primo Levi (as mentioned in the comments, which I agree with).