Legend of a suicide

by David Vann

Paper Book, 2009

Status

Available

Publication

London : Penguin Books, 2009.

Description

A collection of five semi-autobiographical short stories and a novella depict a boy's confused, guilt-ridden relationship with his suicidal father, set against the backdrop of the Alaskan wilderness.

Media reviews

The Guardian

Moving, readable and often bleakly funny, it deserves to find a wide and enthusiastic readership. Its UK publisher's comparisons with the likes of Wolff and Richard Ford aren't, for once, misplaced.

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The Observer

Vann goes beyond such distinctions. His legend is at once the truest memoir and the purest fiction. You need to know it is based on facts to understand just how far he has gone in creating a new reality. But you also need to remain ignorant of the fictional surprise he has in store, so that it can

hit you with the full force of new knowledge. Nothing quite like this book has been written before.

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User reviews

LibraryThing member blackhornet

I cannot believe I am the first LT member to review this book. As such, I am going to make a prediction: it is going to be big, very big. It is going to be big because it will do the rounds of reading groups, because it is very well written, and because of a thing that happens in the central long

short story/ novella. My goodness! That thing! You will never forget it.

The book has garnered plenty of publicity due to its semi-autobiographical nature. Vann's father was a dentist in Alaska and he did commit suicide. The stories in the collection all play with this key event in the author's life. They do so in a style reminiscient of Tobias Wolff. In fact, I would say Vann strives a little too hard to achieve this style; but the work still gets 5 stars from me due to that startling thing to which I have alluded. The Alaskan setting too is fabulously sketched and lends the book a spectral, other-worldly feel. The Road meets The Shining via This Boy's Life!

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13 more

LibraryThing member archipelago6

In the opening story of this collection we are told of the suicide of Roy's father. The next two stories then follow the romantic entanglements of Roy's divorced parents. One of the most intriguing things happens about half-way through the collection when it becomes clear that Roy is fictionally

inserting himself into his father's lonely life with moving and surprising outcomes. The author plays with ideas of how the bereaved reconfigure the lives of the deceased (reflecting back perhaps on what he is doing as an author), and the many ways that a child may sacrifice himself to his parent.

These are astute stories about the relationship that a son has with his father - the dialogue is so realistic, and the psychological observations feel true throughout. Highly recommended.

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LibraryThing member Adrianburke1

How do you rate a book which shoots itself in the head halfway through?

LibraryThing member writergal85

In this collection of semiautobiographical stories, a son copes with his father's eventual suicide. David Vann explores dark thoughts and re-imagines events in an introspective, sharp manner. Legend of a Suicide naturally flows with honesty and grace.

LibraryThing member bookmagic

Roy Fenn is the autobiographical version of David Vann as he explores his father's suicide. Legend of a Suicide is made up of five short stories and one novella. Most of the stories take place in Alaska, except one with Roy as an angry teen in California, watching his mother date a myriad of men.

The novella, Sukkwan Island, is in two parts and takes place on a remote island off Alaska, reachable only by small plane, where Roy, age thirteen, and his father are to live for one year.

my review:
I thought these stories and the writing was very powerful. I was moved by Roy and felt his pain. Sukkawan Island was a fascinating look at time spent in a remote wilderness. Roy's dad, Jim, dumps his emotional baggage on Roy and I felt him crushed by the weight of it. Just two people unequiped to deal with their surroundings, one man unequipped to deal with himself, and a thirteen year old boy unequiped to deal with his father's issues.
The novella didn't seem to go with the other stories, so I don't think they were meant to tell just one story but several different ones. This did not detract from the experience of this book though.
These are not sentimental stories, but stark, truthful words to make a powerful reading experience that I highly recommend.

my rating 5/5

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LibraryThing member tibobi

The Short of It:

Legend of a Suicide is like a drop of water upon a smooth, glassy lake. Small, concentric circles that eventually grow in size as they ripple across the water. Beautiful in one sense, slightly disturbing in another but all in all, an unforgettable read.

The Rest of It:

Legend of a

Suicide is collection of stories. One novella, and five shorter stories. Although they are separate and some were even published independently of the others, they still have a common theme; the relationship between a father and his son.

As the publisher’s blurb indicates, this collection is semi-autobiographical in that the author’s father did commit suicide but much of what happens in each story is fictionalized. This is true particularly for the novella, which is quite touching and shocking at the same time.

Vann does an exceptional job with setting. Nearly all of the stories take place in his native Alaska, so there is much to love. The writing makes you feel as if you’re there and considering the fact that I’ve never visited Alaska, I was quite impressed with how beautiful and true these passages seemed. I could smell the rain and feel the mist and taste the salt in the air. Vann’s writing is extremely lush.

Each story is carefully written. The characters are well-developed, the dialogue realistic but after reading the novella, I was relieved in one sense but felt totally violated in another. I won’t discuss what happens within the novella, but I was so completely absorbed in it, that when I realized what had taken place, I felt a tad violated. As if someone had taken advantage of me and then left me feeling all used up.

I grew up with parents that were/are clinically depressed. The guilt that I felt as a child over not being able to make them happy, ate me up and created scars that will never fade. It’s clear that David Vann experienced much of the same pain. The guilt that a child feels over losing a parent to suicide cannot be measured. It’s ongoing and overwhelming to consider. These stories clearly share that pain with us.

Legend of a Suicide is not a fun read. It’s not the kind of book to curl-up with, hot cocoa in hand, cat at your side. BUT, it’s beautifully written and although haunting at times and even a bit graphic, the images have stayed with me and I would definitely recommend it.

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LibraryThing member LiterateHousewife

Legends of a Suicide is a collection of short stories revolving around the suicide death of a young boy’s father and its aftermath. Given the subject matter and that I don’t typically enjoy short stories, I knew I was taking a risk when I agreed to take part in this TLC Book Tour. What I found

was that the subject matter and short story format worked well. Roy is a young boy in early adolescence when his father commits suicide. The stories leading up to a trip with him and his father into the Alaskan wilderness do jump around in time, but this made sense. He was trying to piece together the story of his father's life and what that means to him.

Despite my understanding of why the stories about living with his mother and about his father's second ex-wife didn't seem connected, I didn't really connect with Roy or the book until the novella, which tells of Roys time living alone with his father in a cabin deep in the the Alaskan wilderness. I kept wondering why in the world his mother would have allowed this to happen. I wanted to hug Roy to myself and keep him safe while his father broke down and cried in the night, leaving Roy alone to deal with adult baggage to which no child should ever be made privy.

My heart broke for Roy and I think that is why the events that take place in the second section of the novella became too graphic for me to continue reading. I do not want to go into much detail in this review, but is during this section that we see inside the head of Roy's father. It is not a pretty place and the graphic and distant way that certain things were described were too much for me. Even if I had anticipated this turn, I don't think I could have continued reading the novella. It was just too real and I didn't like the pictures that were painted inside my head.

I did finish the remaining short stories after skipping the remained of the novella, but the spell was broken because I don't know who the novella was resolved. I think Legend of a Suicide would have packed a tremendous punch had I been able to read it all. My inability to read the entire book is a credit to the author. Gore for its own sake does not usually bother me in the way that Legend of a Suicide did. It was because David Vann brought me in to Roy's situation that I couldn't stomach what was happening. Vann is a very talented young writer and well worth the risk I took to participate in this tour. I truly do look forward to what Vann does next.

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LibraryThing member HeikeM

This is the story of Roy, who's father committed suicide when Roy was still a boy. That of course is something that will never leave Roy. Forever mulling over the act and the actions that came before, gripped by it's memory and trying to escape the shadow it casts over his life by retelling the

story of his fathers life he finally, with one beautiful, gruelling act of revenge lays this dark ghost to rest. It is a dark, beautiful, bleak, colourful, clever, moving and brilliant story, one I had to read through without pause. Fantastic.

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LibraryThing member laphroaig

Semi-autobiographical, so not exactly an autobiography, not exactly a novel but nor a series of short stories, what matters most to Legend of a Suicide is its subject: the suicide of a father and its effect on his son.

Although this can make its narrative disconnected, the writing is excellent,

intimate and, at times, painfully honest. Roy is a troubled teenager whose father is a distant and accident-prone presence, but when he is invited to spend the year with his father on a remote Alaskan island, Roy reluctantly accepts. When he does so he is brought dangerously close to his father's problems. Roy tells the story as a "what-if", seeking both exorcism and revenge with a cruelly sweet fantasy.

David Vann's own experience looms large in this novel. His own father committed suicide and the bulk of the story takes place in Alaska, Vann's own birthplace. At times it can seem too much of a personal journal than a novel for public disclosure, albeit an excellently crafted one. Similarly, at times its plot or pace could be tighter. For this reason is struggles to be compelling; but perhaps because of this it is a highly rewarding read.

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LibraryThing member jphamilton

This is simply an excellent combination of fine writing, wonderfully-drawn characters, a setting strong enough to be counted as another character, and a storyline that involves twisted people circling death. This was Vann's first published work, and is in the form of several short stories and one

rather long short story that take place in Alaska and include much that is autobiographical. I always find myself surprised and impressed, sometimes repulsed and shocked, but I will always return for more of Vann's writing.
Months ago we got a chance to see him speak at Moe's Books, when he was touring for his excellent, and also twisted novel, Dirt. He had some friends, and maybe relatives in the crowd, and, with them there, and some questions from readers wondering about how autobiographical his fiction is, he was most uneasy talking about how he depicted his mother in Dirt, and I'm sure the same unease would have stalked the room if anyone had brought up the father figure in Legend of a Suicide. His father did live in Alaska, David was born there, and the title's suicide is a reference to his dad's death by his own hand with a .44 Magnum. There are many trouble people in his writing. They all ring true as people, and they act completely unpredictable (like much of life) at times of ultimate stress — it always makes for some damn gripping reading.
Several of the other short stories in Legend also grab a hold of you, but the long one, Sukkwan Island, is really developed, and you really get into the man and the son's disjointed relationship as they struggle to survive the harsh climate of their remote and crude cabin in Alaska. You think things are coming to a head ... and then they pull through another hardship ... and then it all goes to hell. You end up with one person alone, with a very thin connection to any reality, and you don't hold out much hope.
Vann portrays a crazed mind on paper as good as anyone ever has. He's a writer that you want to be disturbed by.

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LibraryThing member jamesfallen

Sorry I read this book. Language was disconnected and it was hard to follow the story.

LibraryThing member alexbolding

What can one say? The guy is simply unique. The voice, the story, the suspense, the sheer awkwardness at times. The father and son locked on an island in Alaska is a really up-close story that gets under the skin, certainly with the knowledge one has gleaned already from the three preceding short

stories. The father cries at night, virtually every night, and sometimes tells his son about his sins (him fucking around with hookers or his assistant in the dentist practice). He falls at some stage and it is not clear if he deliberately stepped off the cliff. He can be quite manipulative to his 13 year old son, like when he senses his son would like to leave the island ahead of winter trouble, isolation and possible madness, and then he says to Roy, he can go – the island and the winter experience is something for men after all, real men, not 13 year old boys. And then Roy walks into his father holding a hand gun to his head in the cabin. Dad freezes, turns and gives the gun to his son, walking out into the snow. He hears the shot, but initially thinks nothing of it. When he returns after some hours he finds the dead body of his son on the floor. And that’s the start of a wild trip of his father and the corpse, on a boat, landing on a long island, running out of fuel, breaking into an outhouse, lamenting his life, walking around the island, finally being discovered by a Police helicopter (after setting a section of the forest on fire, burning part of the outhouse). Being on trial for the murder of his son, escaping at some stage on a boat with two dubious types, who decide after receiving some money to kill the father, sensing they can do so with impunity since he’s on the run from justice, a relatively quick death in the icy water follows. Well, some revenge in writing! I think it is the best revenge I ever heard of! Harrowing, yet so utterly rewarding for Roy. After this gut-wrenching story there follow two more short stories, where David tries to understand his father by settling in a place where his father worked and ran off with a woman. He traces the woman and invites her for dinner together with her husband. The guy does some weird things, like killing young salmon babies at night that he is supposed to rear during his day-time job. Most beautifully and again gut-wrenching is how he likes the woman and can imagine with hindsight how his father fell for her, despite the fact that that was the start of the unravelling of his father’s family life and ultimately led him to his suicide.

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LibraryThing member icolford

David Vann makes no secret of the fact that his father’s suicide provides the seed for this book. However, the stories in the collection are in no sense a literal rendering of the events that led his father to take his own life. Rather, one can understand them as a form of therapy or a means to

confront and take control of a traumatic and life-shaping experience. What seems to be going on here is that Vann is addressing and interpreting his father’s suicide in a series of fictional treatments. Some appear to deal more or less squarely with the man’s life and character. Others take a sidelong perspective, approaching the issue via an exploration of father-son relationships. Vann’s fictional stand-in is Roy Fenn, who we encounter as both a boy and a man. Roy’s father, like the author’s father, was a dentist who hated his profession, a man who loved the outdoors and who because he grew to know himself too late, made a series of blunders and fatal miscalculations in his personal life that led to estrangement from his family and financial ruin. The stories depict the fallout from Roy’s father’s poor decisions: an affair with a woman named Rhoda, the receptionist at his dental practice, the purchase of a boat and an ill-fated attempt to make a living as a fisherman. Most striking and memorable is the long two-part story “Sukkwan Island.” The story takes place after the breakup of the family. Roy is thirteen and his father takes him homesteading on remote Sukkwan Island, in south-eastern Alaska. Roy’s father’s second marriage to Rhoda has also failed, because of his compulsive womanizing, though he has not given up on the relationship. The plan is that Roy and his father will deal with the hardships of winter alone together in a tiny cabin in almost complete isolation from civilization and human contact. However, over the long months of their confinement the father’s haphazard preparation, obsessive nature and myriad character flaws surface again and again, finally overwhelming the situation in which the two find themselves, with tragic results. Throughout the book the writing is suspenseful, tersely observant, sometimes poetic, always engaging. Legend of a Suicide is a book of great originality and power that depicts human weakness and its consequences unflinchingly. In the end however it is about survival, forgiveness and acceptance.

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LibraryThing member TimBazzett

LEGEND OF A SUICIDE: STORIES rates a quiet and respectful wow. All about suicide and the far-reaching ripples such an act sends out. Author David Vann was just thirteen when he lost his father to suicide. Writing fiction has been how he has dealt with it. And the stories here are, no question,

thinly veiled autobiography. Compelling and gripping, yes - they must be, because I started reading the book after dinner one night, and suddenly I looked up and it was nearly midnight and I had read over 150 pages. The centerpiece story, however - "Sukkwan Island" - is obviously an impressive, horrifying and very moving work of imagination. It is also the longest story here. There is also lots of local color detail, of Alaska, especially Ketchikan and the archipelago islands of southeastern Alaska. Vann was born on Adak, a desolate rock in the Aleutians, a onetime military base, where his father was stationed as an Army dentist.

What becomes all too clear in most of these stories is the father's mental instability, that he was undoubtedly bipolar, with erratic mood swings and an unhealthy preoccupation with (and a large colection of) guns - a deadly mix.

I was caught up by Vann's stories. He is a masterful tale-spinner who knows far too much about the awful effects of divorce, mental illness and suicide. Readers are hereby forewarned of his subject. That said, my very highest recommendation.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER

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