Book Review : Suicide: An Anthology (2023)
TW: We’re gonna talk about suicide a whole lot.
If you're struggling with suicidal thoughts, dial 988 right now or 1-866-APPELLE if you’re in Quebec. You're not alone. There's help out there.
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If you don’t relate to Ted Kaczynski at this point, you’re part of the problem (Brad's Back on his Bullshit, p.25)
Some of you already know : I've been volunteering at a suicide hotline for a year now. It all started with an idea I had for work, but I'm still there months after my piece has been published. I'm still taking calls because it feels awesome to help, but also because that place changed me. We don't talk about death enough in our society and since it's a taboo, it’s also, perversely, somewhat of a forbidden desire. Suicide is unfortunately romanticized in art and culture and yes, it's as terrible an idea as it sounds.
Suicide: An Anthology, a joint publication from Cash for Gold Books and my guys at House of Vlad, sets the record straight on what's really going on in the mind of someone who wants to die. it isn’t a happy reading, but there's some real, authentic suffering in there.
There are twenty-four stories in Suicide: An Anthology, dealing straightforwardly with suicide, the suicide (or suicide attempts) of a loved one or bereavement from suicide. I didn't have a favorite per se because it would be fucking weird given the topic, but several stood out because of their vibrancy and straightforwardness. For example, Brad Phillips' Brad's Back on his Bullshit translated a feeling of being overwhelmed in the age of information that can drift into despair under the wrong life circumstances.
I'm used to it. Sirens all the time. Fist fights and overdoses. Dirty old men die like flies. Hoookers aren’t around long enough to age. Scenes like this are yesterday’s news. I don’t bother to ask because I’ll find out whether I want to or not (Pierre's Last Sale, p. 114)
No one really matters on a cosmic scale, but insignificance and worthlessness can become two sides of the same coin in the mind of someone that doesn’t a lot going for them. So that was one of the most relatable stories in Suicide: An Anthology even if it was difficult. Evan Cerniglia's On Sainthood, Debts, and Roast Beef is more on the romantic side, but it addresses a very important idea when it comes to mental health: failure. More precisely, the notion that failure it final and unredeemable.
In On Sainthood, Debts, and Roast Beef, the narrator's father has killed himself after featuring in Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares because his identity became interlocked with this life project of his, but his very absence proves that he was more than that. Very clever, thoughtful contribution. Montreal's own Steve Anwyll's Pierre's Last Sale was atypically luminous for his brand of gutter punk fiction, but gracefully so and treated (unwittingly or not) of a misunderstood variable of suicide: contamination effect.
Contamination effect occurs when a suicide in a community enables other people to consider the idea and sometimes acting up on it. In Pierre's Last Sale, the narrator contemplates suicide after someone he knew decided to check out. He considers his own failures and shortcomings until he gets to the very edge of life. It’s minimalistic and introspective, but it mirrors the mental fatigue and the brain fog someone with bad mental health carries quite effectively. It's hard not to picture yourself in these circumstances.
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In other stories that jumped out to me as important, Corey Bennet's opener Summercide was interesting because its Memento-like rewinding storytelling adresses the multiple factors that contribute to suicidal ideation. It’s never one thing that crushes someone. What I’d Ask If You Weren’t Dead by Felicia Urso is a beautiful piece narrated at the second person that adresses the feelings that fill the absence left by a loved one that committed suicide. It has a sweet, brittle melancholy to it that I love.
When You Jump Off The Brooklyn Bridge by Sam Berman, Selected Bones of Bleak, by Peppy Ooze, Twin Speaks by Joe Haward and Formula for Loss by Allie Rowbottom were my other standouts from Suicide: An Anthology. I don’t think any story was bad or weaker in any way. They were all brimming with pain and loss that rang true to me, but you have to make choices when you're reviewing a short story collection and this is my curation. I encourage you to read them all, though if this is something you can do.
Oh, Noose Tattoo by Nick Farriella also. It was great.
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We don’t talk enough about suicide and death in general. When we do, we don’t talk about it properly, peddling myths and romances left and right. This anthology does it right. Not only lt it has the proper tone and discusses the proper themes, but Suicide: An Anthology is a 360 degrees look at the phenomenon. It’s coming out on December 17 and all the profits are going to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. If you're in a good enough place to read it, it’s more than worth your time.
