Legend of a Suicide
-
-
3.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- £4.99
-
- £4.99
Publisher Description
Roy is still young when his father, a failed dentist and hapless fisherman, puts a .44 magnum to his head and commits suicide on the deck of his beloved boat. Throughout his life, Roy returns to that moment, gripped by its memory and the shadow it casts over his small-town boyhood, describing with poignant, mercurial wit his parents' woeful marriage and inevitable divorce, their kindnesses and weaknesses, the absurd and comic turning-points of his past. Finally, in Legend of a Suicide, Roy lays his father's ghost to rest. But not before he exacts a gruelling, exhilarating revenge.
Revolving around a fatally misconceived adventure deep in the wilderness of Alaska, this is a remarkably tender story of survival and disillusioned love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This well-crafted debut collection, five stories and a novella, from award-winning writer and memoirist Vann (A Mile Down) revolves obsessively around the suicide of an Alaskan father. Hopscotching through time, each tale examines the father's death from the perspective of his young son, Roy. The first story, "Ichthyology," introduces the young protagonist and his troubled father, a tax-dodging dentist and fisherman who ends up shooting himself on the deck of his fishing boat. "Rhoda" finds the 12-year-old boy bonding with his new stepmother, a pretty young woman his father married before the tragedy. In "A Legend of Good Men," Roy imagines a fantastically violent rampage in which he does away with his mother's suitors, la Odysseus and Telemachus. The novella, "Sukkwan Island," is an increasingly suspenseful story of survival, in which a 13-year-old Roy and his father brave the elements for months in an isolated mountain cabin. Vann uses startling powers of observation to create strong characters, tense scenes and genuine surprises, leading to a ghastly conclusion that's sure to linger.
Customer Reviews
Upside down world
Very courageous to confront a suicide in the family by writing fiction !
The book has three parts of which I found the first easiest to read. It introduces the three main characters, father-mother-son, is funny somehow and well written.
The second part with the very lengthy father and son adventure on the remote Alaskan island is a stark challenge to the patience of the reader, also confusing as it is now the son who allegedly commits suicide (reader smells a rat though) and everything constantly altogether goes wrong. The third part is back to quirkiness and black Humor, presenting yet another version of events.
The fact that many pages are carefully crafted to portrait this rather wooden, non-creative and otherwise uninteresting dentist is remarkable and somehow reassuring in itself. Very good description of the nightly repetitive despair typical of biological depression. Perspective of the son fully understood.
In short: definitely worth reading ! I might add one more star…