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by Joan Wickersham (Author)
A daughter's moving account of her father's suicide and its impact on her surviving family members--"beautiful...bleak, strong, and fiercely honest" (The Washington Post) One winter morning in 1991, Joan Wickersham's father shot himself in the head. How could the man she knew and loved have killed himself? Unless maybe she never really knew her father at all? His death made a mystery of his entire life. Using an index--that most formal and orderly of structures--Wickersham explores this chaotic and incomprehensible reality. Every bit of family history, plus each encounter with friends, doctors, and other survivors, exposes another facet of elusive truth. Dark, funny, sad, and gripping, at once a philosophical and a deeply personal exploration, The Suicide Index is, finally, a daughter's anguished, loving elegy to her father that no reader will soon forget.
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Wickersham [hasa] gift for making her memories sing as though they were our own. -- Elle One winter morning in 1991, Joan Wickersham s father shot himself in the head.The father she loved would never have killed himself. His death made a mystery of his entire life. Who was he? Why did he do it? And what was the impact of his death on the people who loved him? Using an index that most formal and orderly of structures Wickersham explores this chaotic and incomprehensible reality. Every bit of family history, every encounter with friends, doctors, and other survivors, exposes another facet of elusive truth. Dark, funny, sad, and gripping, at once a philosophical and a deeply personal exploration, The Suicide Index is, finally, a daughter s anguished, loving elegy to her father.
"[A]n extraordinary, magical mystery tour of a book." --Los Angeles Times
"Honest, brave, incredibly moving, and completely unflinching in its honesty. It's one of those rare books that will haunt you for a long time after you finish it." --Nancy Pearl, Morning Edition, National Public RadioJOAN WICKERSHAM is the author of the novel The Paper Anniversary. Her work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories. An excerpt from The Suicide Index earned her the 2007 Ploughshares Cohen Award for Best Short Story. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts."
