History of a Suicide: My Sister's Unfinished Life

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History of a Suicide: My Sister's Unfinished Life

3.34 of 5 stars 3.34 · rating details · 738 ratings · 157 reviews

“It is so nice to be happy. It always gives me a good feeling to see other people happy. . . . It is so easy to achieve.” —Kim’s journal entry, May 3, 1988

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“It is so nice to be happy. It always gives me a good feeling to see other people happy. . . . It is so easy to achieve.” —Kim’s journal entry, May 3, 1988

On the night of April 15, 1990, Jill Bialosky’s twenty-one-year-old sister Kim came home from a bar in downtown Cleveland. She argued with her boyfriend on the phone. Then she took her mother’s car keys, went into the garage, closed the garage door. She climbed into the car, turned on the ignition, and fell asleep. Her body was found the next morning by the neighborhood boy her mother hired to cut the grass.

Those are the simple facts, but the act of suicide is anything but simple. For twenty years, Bialosky has lived with the grief, guilt, questions, and confusion unleashed by Kim’s suicide. Now, in a remarkable work of literary nonfiction, she re-creates with unsparing honesty her sister’s inner life, the events and emotions that led her to take her life on this particular night. In doing so, she opens a window on the nature of suicide itself, our own reactions and responses to it—especially the impact a suicide has on those who remain behind.

Combining Kim’s diaries with family history and memoir, drawing on the works of doctors and psychologists as well as writers from Melville and Dickinson to Sylvia Plath and Wallace Stevens, Bialosky gives us a stunning exploration of human fragility and strength. She juxtaposes the story of Kim’s death with the challenges of becoming a mother and her own exuberant experience of raising a son. This is a book that explores all aspects of our familial relationships—between mothers and sons, fathers and daughters—but particularly the tender and enduring bonds between sisters.

History of a Suicide brings a crucial and all too rarely discussed subject out of the shadows, and in doing so gives readers the courage to face their own losses, no matter what those may be. This searing and compassionate work reminds us of the preciousness of life and of the ways in which those we love are inextricably bound to us.

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Hardcover, 252 pages

Published February 15th 2011 by Atria Books (first published January 1st 2011)

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Mar 30, 2011 Janet rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir-bio, death

A book like this will likely be picked up by someone who has lost a friend or family member to suicide, one who lives with the questions of why? what could I have done? This book won't answer that for anyone~it doesn't even seem that the author has been consoled after her own deconstruction of what might have happened. But it is a worthwhile look at the personal events before and after to try to understand. The author stated on a video that she didn't want to write a dark book, so she gave the s...more

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Oct 12, 2011 Lisa rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is about the journey the author is traveling in continuing to deal with the suicide of her sister 20 years after the fact. She attemps to justify the reasoning behind her sister taking her own life at the age of 21. The book is very insightful. However, I did not agree with A LOT of her rationalization and I only hope she finds resolution and acceptance someday. Heart wrenching. There are no easy answers. Rest in peace dear "Kim."

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Dec 21, 2011 Rebecca rated it 4 of 5 stars

I actually quite liked this book but I don't know if that is a good thing, considering the title. The writers youngest (half) sister commits suicide in her 20's and nearly 20 years later, the author writes this book to sort of deal with it all. I'll just say the thing I liked least about this book was the poetry sprinkled throughout, mainly because I don't understand it at all, ever. But I glossed over it and otherwise found the story interesting.

What I got out of it, was the author trying to fi...more

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Jun 20, 2012 Jan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Yep, the title of this book says it all. The author's sister killed herself at the age of 20. Subsequently, the author has spent some 20+ years trying to figure out why.

It's about as sad as you might imagine. I've read quite a few things about suicide and, to me, it seems like there really aren't any answers, at least none that will ever be satisfactory to the people who are left behind. However, I've been fortunate enough to have never lost someone close to suicide. So what do I know?

I wonder i...more

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Feb 13, 2012 April Hochstrasser rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a writer trying to make sense of her sister's suicide 20 years earlier. But there is no explanation that satisfies. Most people have been depressed to some degree by the time they reach adulthood and have fleeting thoughts of "I no longer want to go on." However, most of us are able to plow through the bad times and go on. Why one person acts on those thoughts and actually goes ahead and commits suicide while in the depths of depression can only be answered by the person who did it and t...more

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Oct 30, 2011 Diann Blakely rated it 5 of 5 stars

As I have announced previously and even obnoxiously, I normally do not assign stars to books: instead, I try to post only reviews of the same quality I would in a high-caliber print or online journal. But of how many books can one say "here, read this, for it may save your life or someone else's at some point?

Louise Kaplan’s central argument in the remarkable and too-little known FEMALE PERVERSIONS is that women unleash violence upon themselves rather than others, and HISTORY OF A SUICIDE is the...more As I have announced previously and even obnoxiously, I normally do not assign stars to books: instead, I try to post only reviews of the same quality I would in a high-caliber print or online journal. But of how many books can one say "here, read this, for it may save your life or someone else's at some point?

Louise Kaplan’s central argument in the remarkable and too-little known FEMALE PERVERSIONS is that women unleash violence upon themselves rather than others, and HISTORY OF A SUICIDE is the arguably the best update on this particular issue. Her wince-inducing, poetic memoir attempts to puzzle out the innumerable, gaping “Whys?” that were the bequest of her step-sister, Kim. Of particular note here is that Kim, whose diaries, poems, college essays, and closet contents represent left-behind clues that lead nowhere, which is too often the case, was involved in a sometimes abusive relationship before her self-asphyxiation in the family garage. The boyfriend killed himself five years later.

Bialosky’s book took twenty years to compose, and she brings a wealth of psychological research to the subject–-or one of them, for HISTORY OF A SUICIDE could just as easily be said to be the story of an American family and how its members simultaneously cling to the loves they have found but never, of course, remain truly unscarred by the losses which life has inflicted upon them. For the survivors left behind by suicides walk around with among the largest and most irreparable holes in their hearts we can imagine.

Bialosky, a distinguished editor, poet, novelist, and essayist, also brings a lifetime of reading to her memoir, a poetic assemblage whose characters range from blood-kin to Melville’s Ishmael to Plath’s eponymous “Daddy.” (See MULTIFORMALISMS, POSTMODERN POETICS OF FORM, edited by Annie Finch and Susan M. Schulz [Textos Books] for a surprisingly fresh, if more academic, take on this particular poem.) Yet HISTORY OF A SUICIDE might just as easily be said to have, as its dramatis personae, a multitude of aching, wound-like absences, though the grace and candor with which the memoir's author has managed to discuss this highly private subject in various features and interviews is additionally astonishing. For those wishing to learn more, or to understand more fully the actions of those they know who have taken their own lives, after reading HISTORY OF A SUICIDE, I have several recommendations to offer: http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/..., http://www.cleveland.com/books/index...., http://chronicle.com/article/PoetrySu..., and last, in a highly serious turn by the English co-author of LIVE FAST, DIE YOUNG: MISADVENTURES IN ROCK & ROLL AMERICA, a recent piece from HUFFINGTON POST about the epidemic of suicide among young men in his native country and an organization called CALM, "Campaign Against Living Miserably," about which you may read more at http://www.thecalmzone.net.

As for Bialosky, I learned just today (30 October 2011) that her book has been named one of five finalists, out of five hundred entries for a "Books for a Better Life" award given annually by the Southern New York Chapter of the National MS Society (http://www.nationalmssociety.org/chap...) in the category of "Inspirational Memoir." There are many impressive names and titles, including THE LONG GOODBYE by Meghan O'Rourke, whose new book of poems, ONCE, is at my bedside this very moment and was edited and published by Bialosky herself, but fortunately, they are not having to compete against each other (!), so I can write with all truthfulness that I feel they are both profoundly deserving; having hoped at one point to review them together. THE LONG GOODBYE concerns a daughter's anguish over the slow death from colon cancer of her fifty-three-year old mother, and I have recommended it to many people as well, cancer, like suicide, robbing such a multitude of loves from our lives, and lives from those we love.

(a portion of this review was originally published as a section of "Crossings, Part Three," OPTION, 15 August 2011)

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Aug 29, 2011 Lynn Tolson rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: suicide, sociology, psychology

History of a Suicide: my sister’s unfinished life by Jill Bialosky is a compassionate yet discomforting memoir. Bialosky seeks to solve the mystery of her sister’s suicide so that she can move through the endless grief. But there is no solution, other than to consider that Jill’s sister, Kim, found her life unbearable. The result for the reader is a sad but satisfying examination for those who mourn a friend or family member’s self-annihilation. Bialosky says that, “Suicide should never happen t...more History of a Suicide: my sister’s unfinished life by Jill Bialosky is a compassionate yet discomforting memoir. Bialosky seeks to solve the mystery of her sister’s suicide so that she can move through the endless grief. But there is no solution, other than to consider that Jill’s sister, Kim, found her life unbearable. The result for the reader is a sad but satisfying examination for those who mourn a friend or family member’s self-annihilation. Bialosky says that, “Suicide should never happen to anyone. I want you to know as much as I know. That is the reason I am writing this book.”

Within the family unit, there is death (of Jill’s biological father); depression (Jill and Kim’s mother) and abandonment (by Kim’s biological father). Kim unwittingly recreates this destructive foundation in a relationship with an abusive boyfriend (who killed himself five years after Kim’s suicide). Jill deals with unbearable losses related to having children. This is only a brief summary of a discomforting family history.

The scope of Bialosky’s work on this memoir is extensive. The author even consults with Dr. Edwin Shneidman, who wrote The Suicidal Mind, for a psychological autopsy on Kim. Bialosky also summarizes studies so the readers don’t have to, and there’s information we might not otherwise learn: “...the rate of suicide was twice as high in families of suicide victims as in comparison families.” Throughout the book, Bialosky weaves research with literature, inserting poetry and prose to compliment the narrative. For example, Bialosky uses the metaphorical concepts of Melville’s Moby Dick in the midst of her memoir. The style worked to help her understand the act of suicide, and that is of utmost importance. The variety of writing methods serves to reach a multitude of readers: What does not communicate well with one reader may be the catalyst for insight for another reader.

As the author of a book about suicide in the family, and my own suicide attempts, I found History of a Suicide compelling and courageous. It is a labor of love to dig so deep to try to come to grips with the finality of suicide.

review completed by Lynn C. Tolson, author of Beyond the Tears: A True Survivor's Story(less)

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May 09, 2011 Terry rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir, non-fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I really disliked this book, which is too bad, because I like Bialosky's poetry. But I found this book so narcissitic it was really off-putting. Bialosky is shattered by her younger sister's suicide and tries to recreate, really, her sister's life as a way of finding out how her sister came to choose suicide. It's an interesting, and obviously hugely painful, subject for a book. But I was really disappointed in the result.

For one thing, Bialosky is ten years older than her sister and leaves hom...more

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Dec 24, 2011 Michelle rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, memoir

Powerful memoir about a women dealing with her sister’s suicide (Merry Christmas – sheesh, nice pick for this time of year). If you’re not bawling your eyes out by page 25 there’s something wrong with you. This book is part memoir, part study. The author takes a very intellectual approach to everything, even though her pain is very evident. It’s amazing the strength of this pain and its effects on the entire family nearly twenty years later. The writing is strong and beautiful. The author is a p...more

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Aug 22, 2011 Tiffany rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was a very interesting and kinda jumbled book to read. It was kind of like takikng someones "personal journey" diary and publishing it. I do respect the author though for taking this journey publicly. I have had a few friends in my life commit suicide....one in paticular that was pretty close to me, and I never saw it coming. For me this book caused me to question my own personal relationships and ask myself if I am always at least trying my darndest to REALLY listen to what the other perso...more

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Apr 28, 2011 Barbara Justiniano rated it 4 of 5 stars

I found this book very interesting and thought provoking, yet at the same time very heartwrenching to read. I've never lost a loved one to suicide, but had a friend who's father killed himself, and saw first hand all the destruction it can do to a family. I understand the author's need to try to understand why her sister did what she did, but after reading the book I've come to realize that the mind is a very complex and complicated thing, and there are those of us who will never be able to comp...more

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Mar 10, 2011 Denise Saucedo rated it 3 of 5 stars

I am not sure why I picked up this book to read. Maybe because it's coming close to the 14th year anniversary of my brothers death. It is always around this time that I wonder why he did what he did. Searching for answers that will never be answered because the only person that can answer them decided to end his life that gloomy day in April. Now that I am older and I have a teenage son, I am always afraid of any talk of unhappiness. I am always looking for the signs. But are there really any? W...more

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Apr 25, 2012 Amy rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

Like many people, I picked up this book looking for help understanding a tragedy in my own life, a friend's son who was just seventeen years old when he killed himself a few months ago. I wanted to get a better sense of what he might have been feeling, and what my friend must be going through now as a survivor.

I feel like a cad criticizing a book which clearly contains so much of the author’s heart and soul. But books are meant for readers, not the author, and this one failed to connect with me...more

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Apr 28, 2011 Sharron rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011-books-read

My job involves death and often those deaths are the result of suicide. I also have loved ones who struggle with the grip of suicide. Many of the Goodread reviews have been negative regarding this book. One in particular called it messy. However, the author was very clear at the start that this was a book recounting her personal journey into finding out why her sister committed suicide and her own reflections. That is not an easy journey to undertake and is messy and emotional. I very much enjoy...more

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Apr 11, 2011 Carrie O'Maley rated it 3 of 5 stars

Heartfelt and also heartbreaking, this is a memoir that reads just as it is--a grief-stricken woman trying to understand something that isn't comprehensible writes about that grief. Bialosky's then 21-year-old sister took her own life 20 years ago, and Bialosky has spent the past 20 years piecing together her sister's life, trying to find where things went wrong and how she missed the warning signs. It's a moving book, but it was more enjoyable when the writer talked about the suicide survivor's...more

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May 15, 2011 Leah rated it 2 of 5 stars

my kind review is - this is a very touching book about a family that has been through a very sad time by a woman who really knows the topic, both psychologically and literary-wise. and i imagine that it would be helpful if you've suffered such a horrible loss.

my unkind review is - this book is boring and isn't really enough for a story. and there were several times when i couldn't follow her logic (how is a dog biting one of your sisters before this sister is born a "harbinger" of what will happ...more

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Apr 07, 2011 Nancy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Very interesting, but did not resonate in an overly emotional manner, to me. It was truly startling to read thru her research and see how it applied to her sister's life, as well as her own. I think it's one that might also answer questions for people who are curious about how the loss of a parent at an early age can affect a child throughout their life. It was powerful to realize as you read thru the book how many times suicide had been present in or around their lives, but they were unaware of...more

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Dec 02, 2011 SwensonBooks rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: jill

When I picked up Jill Bialosky's new book, I thought: finally, someone who might understand, someone who might have answers. Suicide makes for a different kind of grief. An incomprehensible one: your mind can’t find its logic. Even though our losses and circumstances are quite different, her story resonated with my own journey toward acceptance, forgiveness and reconciliation. Jill Bialosky tries to understand why her sister, Kim, took her own life at the age of 21 in 1990. During the past 20 ye...more When I picked up Jill Bialosky's new book, I thought: finally, someone who might understand, someone who might have answers. Suicide makes for a different kind of grief. An incomprehensible one: your mind can’t find its logic. Even though our losses and circumstances are quite different, her story resonated with my own journey toward acceptance, forgiveness and reconciliation. Jill Bialosky tries to understand why her sister, Kim, took her own life at the age of 21 in 1990. During the past 20 years, Bialosky has been an editor at W.W. Norton as well as an acclaimed poet and novelist, nursing along her own brilliant memoir of grief.

As a reader, I rode a wave of grief memoirs that began with The Year of Magical Thinking and continues today with A Widow's Story. Other fine examples include The Long Goodbye, Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship, Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs, and Here If You Need Me: A True Story. Local Ithaca author Diane Ackerman has recently published, One Hundred Names for Love, a memoir of anticipatory grief.

The deaths of husbands, mothers, fathers, children, friends, even pets, have been the subject of touching, recent, bestselling memoirs that affirm readers who suffer similar kinds of losses and create compassion in those who can’t even imagine. But none of these recent books tells a story about losing a loved one to suicide.

History of a Suicide begins with the simple facts surrounding her sister’s suicide in 1990 and opens up a narrative on the impact suicide has on those who remain behind. The book starts out like a good mystery or detective story. Jill Bialosky wrote this page-turner in plain language. She weaves together her sister’s diaries and the words of Melville, Dickinson, Wallace Stevens and Sylvia Plath across the weft of words from doctors and psychologists. The author speaks straight into the reader’s heart with unflinching bravery. A voice filled with emotional honesty, Jill Bialosky offers reader both solace and clarity.

In 1897, Durkheim, the father of sociology, published Suicide. He studied the death statistics of France over time and discovered patterns in the aggregated cases. Downturns in the economic market, health epidemics, prospects of war and other social factors correlated to rates of suicides. What predisposing conditions, what circumstantial events, what triggers in social relations lead to self-annihilation? After more than a century we seem to know less, not more about why.

Jill Bialosky doesn’t find the answers in social demographic factors or family dysfunction. The abandonment of Kim’s father at an early age and their mother’s depression are tragic elements, but not explanations. Bialosky offers a profoundly personal and poetic investigation of her sister’s death. Part psychological autopsy, part love letter to Kim’s unfinished life, Bialosky’s memoir mirrors the minds of those loved ones left in the wake of suicide. While the details of her story are unique, the relentless search for meaning is not.

The unanswered questions left in the wake of such an unexpected end haunt survivors. Bialosky writes beautifully and sensitively about this quiet quest. She will never really know what it was like for Kim in those final moments, or, if anyone had done anything differently, would it have changed the trajectory of her sister’s short life. For all the forensic analysis applied to one young woman’s decision to end her life before it had really begun, at the end there is only the mystery. The reader is left with a sense that this feeling of no end to the “what ifs” is central to grieving in a way distinct from all other kinds of grief.

Twenty years of mourning Kim makes her an expert on what happened and how, not why. Bialosky helps the reader understand Kim and the inevitability of her death. Without judgment and filled with compassion, she lets Kim tell her own story and she shares her own with these opening words: “Kim’s suicide has forever altered the way in which I respond to the world around me.”(less)

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Oct 29, 2011 Jody rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: tragic, nonfiction, suicide

It's hard to critically review such a personal book that encompasses so much pain. I applaud the author for sharing a story that is often not even mentioned publicly. Survivors of suicide need to be heard and are often overlooked after such a tragic death. I've read many a book on the lives of those who resorted to this 'final exit' whether they were famous or not. However, I haven't read a book like this. As the author puts it, this was very much a 'psychological autopsy'of her sister's suicide...more

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Feb 17, 2011 Zoë (In The Next Room) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: egalley, ebook, memoir-biography

"The most mysterious part of grief is that you think you can will it away."

History of a Suicide: My Sister's Unfinished Life is Jill Bialosky's reflection on her sister's life, a girl who killed herself when she was only twenty two and who's family has mourned her for decades. Bialosky tells her own personal story including her struggle with miscarriages and accepting her sister's death, but also delves into the life of her sister, Kim, and what events may have lead up to her suicide. In additi...more "The most mysterious part of grief is that you think you can will it away."

History of a Suicide: My Sister's Unfinished Life is Jill Bialosky's reflection on her sister's life, a girl who killed herself when she was only twenty two and who's family has mourned her for decades. Bialosky tells her own personal story including her struggle with miscarriages and accepting her sister's death, but also delves into the life of her sister, Kim, and what events may have lead up to her suicide. In addition, Bialosky reflects on suicide in general, talking to specialists in the field and referencing writing on the topic.

When I read An Exclusive Love by Johanna Adorjan, I felt the author was too far detached from her grandparents to have the intended impact when discussing their suicide. I was really surprised then, when History of a Suicide did not leave me with the same feeling. I think the difference is that in this book, Bialosky deals not only with the events leading up to her sister's death, but also how it impacted her own life, looking at suicide from a more general context and allowing her to reflect on the impact it has on those it leaves behind, as well as attempting to answer why people choose to commit suicide at all. Bialosky doesn't pretend to have any answers, but what she does offer is a beautifully written testament to the legacy her sister Kim left behind, both the happy and the sad memories.

The most powerful aspect of History of a Suicide is the writing, such crystal clear beauty that I was not surprised when I learned that Bialosky is also a poet. Although I had not heard of her before she does include several relevant poems of hers in the book which share the same stark imagery although tend be more abstract. Many of her phrases weaved their way into my mind, especially when she talked about why she was writing this book at all. The book includes powerful descriptions such as:

"The page has been my container, my ship; my words my compass; my memory my harpoon in my desire to wrest coherence from the unwieldy material of personal truth."

Some of my favourite excerpts come from Bialosky's writing on writing, including:

"Formulating our own words about our lives translates our interior hieroglyphics into the stories we tell ourselves to make events from our pasts more understandable, give them shape and meaning, organize the chaos of the unconscious where we most often dwell."

History of a Suicide is also littered with poems and excerpts from famous works on suicide, Bialosky references everything from Shakespeare to Sylvia Plath to a nature documentary she once watched. In this way, the message that suicide is everywhere, it is a universal pain that cannot be truly understood until it is experience, is re-enforced with startling clarity. By the time Bialosky shares her sister's suicide note the book is almost over. I had been waiting for it, anxiously, perhaps wanting to see if it shared a clue into why she killed herself. When the reader finally reaches it, it is instead absolutely heartbreaking and tragic, simple and short, she sounds so much still like a little girl. A little girl who never had the chance to grow up.

Ultimately, History of a Suicide is completely unique in that it contains memoir of Bialosky's life including the years she spent with her sister, as well hypothesis on the events leading up to Kim's death. Also included are excerpts from Kim's diary and schoolwork, as well as lists of things such as what was in her closet when she died. In addition, Bialosky reflects on suicide in literature as well as including discussion on the science behind suicide and what a person can do when they think somebody is at risk: ask. The end result of History of a Suicide is both incredibly personal and universal, leaving the reader with the powerfully true message, that despite all Bialosky has written, "the dialogue we have with the dead is never ending."(less)

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Apr 10, 2012 Kimmie rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: kindle-books-i-own

History of a Suicide: My Sister's Unfinished Life by Jill Bialosky
I have been reading this book for months and it has been slow going. As someone who has had to experience the aftermath of a Suicide it was rough for me to read this book. (Which is why it has been so slow for me to read it almost torture like), but I wanted to read someone else experience with suicide.

The book is about her sister Kim who commits Suicide at 21 years old. In the book she mentions Kim’s toxic relationship with her o...more History of a Suicide: My Sister's Unfinished Life by Jill Bialosky
I have been reading this book for months and it has been slow going. As someone who has had to experience the aftermath of a Suicide it was rough for me to read this book. (Which is why it has been so slow for me to read it almost torture like), but I wanted to read someone else experience with suicide.

The book is about her sister Kim who commits Suicide at 21 years old. In the book she mentions Kim’s toxic relationship with her on again off again boyfriend, Kim’s drug use, their mother who suffered from depression and Kim’s father who was pretty much absent from her life. She thinks one of these or all of the above is to blame for Kim’s Suicide. But I feel like mainly she blames their mother for her death. She is trying to piece together what happened but she never will. I know this because I have had family members commit suicide.

After it happens everyone around you plays the if only game. If only I would have known…etc…And they try to piece together the events that led up to the person taking their life. They never get the answers they hope to find and they never fully understand how this could have happened.

I have had two cousins one who was 33 and one who was 26 years old and my brother in law who was 34 all three of them committed suicide. It changes you a piece of you dies when they do. Having to see parents ask people “you saw him before he died how did he seem to you?” Family trying to piece what happened and what would cause someone to take their own life it is rough. Seeing someone who used to be so full of laughter and smiling all the time to see them now quiet and withdrawn and damaged and not the same because a part of them died when their loved one took their life. It is really sad and to have people come up to you and say the person that committed suicide was “selfish”.

People who commit suicide are so depressed and they don’t see a way out of their situation and they think the world is better off without them. They are so far down and in so much pain they can’t see straight and don’t think anyone around them gives a damn about them so they take their life. They feel it is their only way out of their pain. And most people who commit suicide mask their pain and no one really knows how bad they are hurting until it is too late.

I didn’t care for the book I felt like she blamed their mother for her death. She wanted to write a book to try to piece together what happened to her sister and what a difficult thing to do and to relive to try and understand but she never will understand. Anyone who has had a loved one take their life will ever understand or get the answers they wish they could find. But maybe no matter what I wouldn't like this book because it is so painful to think about and here I was wanting to read about someone elses perspective but again it is painful and I didn't agree with some of it.
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Jun 16, 2011 Maxine rated it 3 of 5 stars

This took courage to write. I think it is sad that families can't talk about the unpleasant things in life. This book shows the affect it has on children when parents walk away and don't stay connected to their children. Everyone who has a parent or parents who walk away don't commit suicide but the hurts stay with us and effect our entire life. It shows that the ones who are left never get over the loss and are constantly trying to figure out why. I don't think there are concrete answers. It is...more

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Mar 27, 2011 Nette rated it 2 of 5 stars

Messy, overwritten, and completely useless as an analysis of suicide. She lost me right at the beginning when she used one of her own poems as a prelude. (Several more of her poems are scattered throughout the book like product placements in a movie, and she helpfully provides the poetry book title in the "notes" section in case you want to pick up a copy.) Honestly, the whole project seems like a way to show off her writing skills rather than a serious attempt to understand her sister. At one p...more

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May 30, 2011 Cheryl rated it 4 of 5 stars

I will admit that I hesitate to bring his book to anyone's attention. Who really wants to read a book about suicide and the aftermath? It is really very scary. My brother's suicide has had quite an impact on my life, and in this book, I found some solace and personal insight. I could see how my thinking, feeling and being in this world was changed. It's often the unburdening that is the answer. I think that is what this book is about.
I especially appreciated the Checklist for The Survivor of a S...more

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Oct 28, 2011 ayrdaomei rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to ayrdaomei by: Women's Day

Shelves: finished

I wavered between giving this 3 stars and giving it 4 stars, but I'm gonna settle for 3. I came across this book through a write-up in one of those women's mags that my mom subscribes to but never reads. Suicide has really been on my mind the last few years (not in the "thinking of doing it" sense, but in the "it seems to be everywhere all the time" sense) and then late this summer a local sports legend took his own life at the age of 56. He left behind a wife and three daughters. I was so struc...more I wavered between giving this 3 stars and giving it 4 stars, but I'm gonna settle for 3. I came across this book through a write-up in one of those women's mags that my mom subscribes to but never reads. Suicide has really been on my mind the last few years (not in the "thinking of doing it" sense, but in the "it seems to be everywhere all the time" sense) and then late this summer a local sports legend took his own life at the age of 56. He left behind a wife and three daughters. I was so struck by the very public emotional reactions of the friends he left behind. Stoic ballplayers I'd long idolized were on my television, their eyes rimmed with tears, on my radio, their voices choked, the night the news broke. I'd never really seen how suicide affects the people around the person who makes the choice to take his own life.

I couldn't stop thinking about it; about how and why he couldn't have gotten some help; about how he could have done such a thing to his family and friends; about why.

So when I read the write-up about this book, I immediately put out a hold request at my local library. The author's youngest sister, Kim, killed herself when she was 22 years old. I couldn't imagine being brave enough to even consider trying to explore something like that in a book, but Jill Bialosky does. "History of a Suicide" is equal parts tribute, psychological autopsy, grief journal, and survey of literature (fictional and non) on suicide in our society.

I found this book really interesting. And I'm not going to lie - Jill Bialosky's words brought me to tears on more than one occasion. As did Kim's (her journals and compositions are quoted liberally throughout the book).

Now, that said -- and this feels terrible to say -- the book does occasionally cross the line into what struck even me as maudlin sentimentality. That's why it ends up a 3 star read instead of 4 star read for me. I am sure I'd feel differently if Kim were my blood, but since I wasn't a family member reading this, but instead someone who was just along for the journey Kim and Jill had taken, some passages just tried my patience. But there was really no question of me not finishing this book or just skimming through.

A worthwhile read, I think, especially in this day and age.(less)

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Mar 23, 2011 Kate added it

Shelves: 2011

Crushingly banal. (But is that the point?) If you want to read about suicide/depression in order to consider it in new ways, read something else. Read William Styron's Darkness Visible. Read Kay Jamison's Night Falls Fast. Read any and all of the various works Bialosky has quoted here. She's read the expected suicide canon and has capably regurgitated it for our pleasure. Thought you might find Dante referenced? Yes, it is here. A word about Robert Lowell? That's here, too. "Hope is a thing with...more

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Apr 10, 2011 Darnell rated it 1 of 5 stars

This book wasn't really a forensic psychology study as hinted in its description and simply the author's cathartic release. Bialosky spends more time speculating than researching. Instead of finding old friends of her sister or her boyfriend, who killed himself a couple years later (a fact we learn as an afterthought), she spends a LOT of time filling in the blanks by starting paragraphs with statements like "I imagine she felt..." This is just an attempt to paint a picture of a damaging relatio...more

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Feb 05, 2013 Janet Ricchetti rated it 4 of 5 stars

Very difficult book to read because of the subject matter. While the author is writing about her sister Kim, I was most struck by their mother. She is a woman who loses her husband too young and is never able to replace him in kind, as she needs to do in order to provide for her children. Her skills and the social mores of her time work against her. She hangs on to a house in a "good" neighborhood but offers little else. Once the older daughters leave, on successful paths because of the neighbor...more

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May 30, 2013 Patricia Murphy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir

I'll take a cue from another reviewer who said, "I'm glad the author wrote this book for herself." The story of losing her own babies is heart-breaking and it seems nearly impossible for a human to come back from the trifecta of trauma that the author experienced.

But with this book the reader is bystander. There is a lot of repetition. So much is summarized instead of embodied. It felt like there was so much energy spent absolving guilt that there was no energy left over for artistry or metapho...more

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Mar 02, 2013 Blaine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: life

A friend of mine committed suicide last month. I found this at the library and picked it up. Does it hold all of the answers? - no. For a more clinical or empirical look at suicide then it is necessary to look elsewhere. However, if you are seeking a beautifully written book by a sister seeking to make sense of a younger sister's death then this is it. I believe this was part of the healing process for the writer. At times, the poetic passages quoted sometimes seem to get in the way of the story...more

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“We do not want to comprehend that people may and do die of emotional pain, or to recognize the terror in ourselves when we cannot seem to help someone in despair -- when our words are empty.” — 5 people liked it

“To get through the night, I sometimes imagined the sky filled with a canopy of stars. I imagined that each star contained the soul of a girl or boy who had died too young, and the light the stars gave off was their brightness.” — 4 people liked it

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