Shares the author's experiences after the suicide of her ex-husband, as well as the most recent insights into suicide from the medical community.

Prominent businessman Pal Maciver locked himself in his study and shot himself. It's an open-and-shut case, as far as Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel is concerned. Except... Maciver's father died in an almost identical manner ten years earlier, and "Fat Andy" was the investigating officer. Pal's strange and strained relationship with his beautiful, enigmatic stepmother, Kay Kafka, also raises warning flags. And the family's shady corporate dealings...

National Book Award Finalist: “Wickersham has journeyed into the dark underworld inside her father and herself and emerged with a powerful, gripping story.” —The Boston Globe
 
One winter morning in 1991, Joan Wickersham’s father shot himself in the head. The father she loved would never have killed himself, and yet he had. His death made a mystery of his entire life. Who was he? Why did he do...

Leopold Bloom King, the narrator, is the son of an amiable, loving father who teaches science at the local high school. His mother, an ex-nun, is the high school principal and a well-known Joyce scholar. After Leo's older brother commits suicide at the age of thirteen, the family struggles with the shattering effects of his death. Eventually he becomes part of a tightly knit group of high school seniors that includes friends Sheba and Trevor Poe,...

"Suicide would appear to be the last taboo. Even incest is now discussed freely in popular media, but the suicide of a loved one is still an act most people are unable to talk about--or even admit to their closest family or friends. This is just one of the many painful and paralyzing truths author Carla Fine discovered when her husband, a successful young physician, took his own life in December 1989. And being unable to speak openly and honestly...