Book Review: History of a Suicide

Suicide is not a cheerful topic, yet it sometimes needs to be addressed. The belief among many therapists is that if you don't talk about suicidal feelings, you're more likely to follow through with the action, even if unsuccessful. Of course, that's also not saying it will prevent the suicide from being repeated or ultimately lethal.

Yesterday, there was a news story about a gentleman who had attempted suicides on numerous occasions, but something had prevented it. He was spotted by someone, put under observation, given medication, and every thing that could or should have prevented his suicide had been done, short of locking him in a non-lethal room for the rest of his life. In one suicidal attempt, his legs were damaged, but he remained alive, though needing artificial limbs.

Writers and artists tend to have a high rate of suicide, noted psychotherapist Kay Redfield Jamison in her book, Touched With Fire, which examines the lives of several writers and artists who ended their lives due to inner turmoil.

In fact the biting wit of writer Dorothy Parker expressed such ideas of suicide in several of her poems, the  most noted being Resume':

Résumé

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

But in Jill Bialosky's book about her sister, History of a Suicide: my sister's unfinished life, Bialosky tells the psychic pain (some refer to it as psychic ache) of her younger sister, Kim. Without retelling the story entirely, Kim had been in pain for some time, which was not easily pinpointed. Kim's suicide at the age of twenty-one, left a void in those she left behind who had tried to help her, most notably, her sister. Bialosky has sought for over two decades to understand why her sister chose suicide over life, and expresses the pain and guilt of those left behind after the untimely death of a loved ones in situations where there is no clear answer, while she gains insight and shares it with the reader.