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Legend of a Suicide: Stories (P.S.)

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Legend of a Suicide: Stories (P.S.) Cover

ISBN13: 9780061875847
ISBN10: 0061875848
Condition: Standard
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

In "Ichthyology", a young boy watches his father spiral from divorce to suicide. The story is told obliquely, often through the boy's observations of his tropical fish, yet also reveals his father's last desperate moves, including quitting dentistry for commercial fishing in the Bering Sea. Rhoda goes back to the beginning of the father's second marriage and the boy's fascination with his stepmother, who has one partially closed eye. This eye becomes a metaphor for the adult world the boy can't yet see into, including sexuality and despair, which feel like the key initiating elements of the father's eventual suicide.

"A Legend of Good Men" tells the story of the boy's life with his mother after his father's death through the series of men she dates. In "Sukkwan Island", an extraordinary novella, the father invites the boy home-steading for a year on a remote island in the southeastern Alaskan wilderness. As the situation spins out of control, the son witnesses his father's despair and takes matters into his own hands.

In "Ketchikan", the boy is now thirty years old, searching for the origin of ruin. He tracks down Gloria, the woman his father first cheated with, and is left with the sense of a world held in place, as it turned out, by nothing at all. Set in Fairbanks, where the author's father actually killed himself, "The Higher Blue" provides an epilogue to the collection.

Review:

"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." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Review:

"This stunning collection of five short stories and a novella centers on the suicide of an Alaskan father. [O]ne of the most striking fictional debuts in recent memory." Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author

Synopsis:

In semi-autobiographical stories set largely in David Vann's native Alaska, Legend of a Suicide follows Roy Fenn from his birth on an island at the edge of the Bering Sea to his return thirty years later to confront the turbulent emotions and complex legacy of his father's suicide.

Synopsis:

“The reportorial relentlessness of [David] Vanns imagination often makes his fiction seem less written than chiseled. A small, lovely book has been written out of his large and evident pain.”—New York Times Book Review

 In Legend of a Suicide, his heartbreaking semi-autobiographical debut story-collection, David Vann relates the story of a young man trying to come to terms with the guilt and pain of his fathers suicide. The wild outback of the authors native Alaska acts as the ideal backdrop for this collage of six stories—a novella and five shorts—and mirrors the authors own psychological wilderness. From “an important new voice in American literature” (Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain) comes an unforgettable exploration of the tragic gaps between one boy and his father.

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About the Author

David Vann is the author of Legend of a Suicide, winner of France's Prix MÉdicis for best foreign book and a New Yorker Book Club pick; the bestselling memoir A Mile Down: The True Story of a Disastrous Career at Sea; and Last Day On Earth: A Portrait of the NIU School Shooter, Steve Kazmierczak, winner of the AWP Nonfiction Prize. A recipient of Wallace Stegner and National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, with an MFA from Cornell, he's a professor now at the University of San Francisco and writes for magazines such as Esquire, Outside, Men's Journal, and the Sunday Times.
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What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 2 comments:
Bonnie Brody, January 1, 2011 (view all comments by Bonnie Brody)
David Vann has written a dark and brooding novella and short stories that are semi-autobiographical in nature. They re-enact his own father's suicide when he was 12 years old. Taking place in remote southern Alaska, Vann explores the inner and outer landscapes of the human psyche. His sense of place is impeccable and his writing is riveting. I was hooked from page one and could not stop reading until the end. This is one of the finest books I have ever read, not just for 2010.
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OneMansView, December 27, 2010 (view all comments by OneMansView)
Harsh environment leads to tragedy (3.75*s)

This book of five short stories and one novella – 75% of the book – is an effort by the author to shed some light on suicide generally, but more specifically on that of his father some thirty years prior. Because of the autobiographical intent of the book, it is somewhat unfortunate that the author included strange, inconsistent twists in some of the stories that confuse and dilute the effort. However, little doubt is left concerning the psychic pain surrounding suicide – its haunting after effects, not to mention the mental deterioration leading to it.

The main story is set in a totally isolated fiord, surrounded by steep mountains, in southeastern Alaska where Jim, a lapsed dentist and twice divorced, has prevailed upon his thirteen-year-old son, Roy, now living in California with his mother, to live for a year in an A-frame cabin. It quickly becomes evident that they are almost totally unprepared for such a life; they lack both knowledge of primitive survival techniques and essential tools and supplies. Within days of being flown in on an amphibian plane, a bear breaks in and devastates their cabin, ruining most of their food supply. That is only a small sample of what the harsh, rocky, wet, and cold landscape suggests is to come.

Beyond the upsetting environmental surprises, little did Roy understand the psychological depths to which his father’s life had sunk. His life had been spiraling downward for some time, with two failed marriages, numerous affairs, a failed commercial fishing venture, and a dentistry career left behind. Roy was not ready for the nighttime crying and talking of his father, which was covered with false cheerfulness in the mornings. The entire scenario was unsustainable, bursting with tension, and it all finally exploded with a devastating death. It quite literally took months for a rescue, but not before tremendous physical hardship and agonizing self-admonishments and rationalizations were endured.

The author does play with facts and no doubt employs much exaggeration, yet most of that is more than justified in trying to explain suicide. Reconstruction of thought processes may be about as close one can get to understanding suicide. Nonetheless, the reader is left wondering how Jim arrived at his mental situation beyond his more obvious setbacks. Mental states and actions do have a large social component.

The saga of life at the cabin is a little repetitious, but is fairly gripping; Roy and his father seemed to be on the verge of disaster on a daily basis. The other, shorter stories are not without interest, despite their somewhat dissonant aspects. Beyond suicide, this book would make any rational person have second thoughts about embarking on a life in the wilds of Alaska on no more than a whim.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780061875847
Author:
Vann, David
Publisher:
Harper Perennial
Subject:
Short Stories (single author)
Subject:
General Fiction
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Copyright:
2010
Edition Description:
Trade PB
Series:
P.S.
Publication Date:
20100331
Binding:
TRADE PAPER
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
272
Dimensions:
8.04x5.28x.66 in. .46 lbs.
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Related Subjects

Fiction and Poetry » Literature » A to Z
Fiction and Poetry » Literature » Sale Books

Legend of a Suicide: Stories (P.S.) Used Trade Paper
0 stars - 0 reviews
$7.50 In Stock
Product details 272 pages Harper Perennial - English 9780061875847 Reviews:
"Publishers Weekly Review" by , "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." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
"Review" by , "This stunning collection of five short stories and a novella centers on the suicide of an Alaskan father. [O]ne of the most striking fictional debuts in recent memory."
"Synopsis" by , In semi-autobiographical stories set largely in David Vann's native Alaska, Legend of a Suicide follows Roy Fenn from his birth on an island at the edge of the Bering Sea to his return thirty years later to confront the turbulent emotions and complex legacy of his father's suicide.
"Synopsis" by , “The reportorial relentlessness of [David] Vanns imagination often makes his fiction seem less written than chiseled. A small, lovely book has been written out of his large and evident pain.”—New York Times Book Review

 In Legend of a Suicide, his heartbreaking semi-autobiographical debut story-collection, David Vann relates the story of a young man trying to come to terms with the guilt and pain of his fathers suicide. The wild outback of the authors native Alaska acts as the ideal backdrop for this collage of six stories—a novella and five shorts—and mirrors the authors own psychological wilderness. From “an important new voice in American literature” (Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain) comes an unforgettable exploration of the tragic gaps between one boy and his father.
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