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A Cure for Suicide: A Novel

A Cure for Suicide: A Novel

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A Cure for Suicide: A Novel

by Ball, Jesse

  • Used
  • Fine
  • Hardcover
  • first
Condition
Fine/Fine
ISBN 10
1101870125
ISBN 13
9781101870129
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About This Item

New York: Pantheon Books, 2015. 1st Edition . Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Printing. On the Granta list of the best young American novelists, 2017. Nominated for the National Book Award. Author of THE CURFEW.

Reviews

On Jun 28 2015, CloggieDownunder said:
“Time passed. After some number of days, one particular day arrived, and in the midst of that day, it was midday. The sun was shining so brightly overhead it seemed that every blade of grass could be made out, each from the others. It was a sort of harmony – nothing could be hidden, nothing at all beneath the sky”.

A Cure For Suicide is the fifth novel by prize-winning American author, Jesse Ball. It begins with a nameless man (the claimant) who is living in a house in a village (Gentlest Village) where he is taught the basic activities of daily living by a doctor/guide (the examiner). The claimant is told he almost died, and is now being healed. The Process of Villages is the treatment he will undergo, the cure for suicide. Set somewhere far into the future, or in a parallel universe, Ball’s world, and certainly many of the character names, have a slightly Scandinavian feel to it (perhaps not surprising, given his Icelandic wife).

If the reader can get past the first (somewhat bizarre) two thirds of the novel, then the discussion between the petitioner and the interlocutor forms an explanation of how the nameless man came to be going through the Process of Villages. While the lack of quotation marks for speech can be irritating, it is generally not a barrier to understanding who is speaking, except during the discussion with the interlocutor, when conversations reported at third or fourth remove create quite complicated sentences.

Ball’s style is simple and stark, but his descriptive prose is, nonetheless, evocative: “She sat at a desk with her back to him, writing long into the night as she always did. The light from the fixture in that room was shabby. It fell very bitterly over the room, and some of the light from a lamp in the street contested with it. The effect was: as she sat at her desk she looked like a figure in a woodcut. And she sat as still” and “The manager, a yellowed, rancid sort of man, the type who seldom clip his nails, who believes they need be clipped less often than you and I do….”are two examples.

Ball describes a world where depression and heartbreak appear to be eliminated by amnesiac treatments: what led to the nameless man’s therapy is a moving tale, and perhaps Ball is leading the reader to consider the ethics of medicalising grief. The conclusion will leave the reader wondering about the sincerity (or otherwise) of a key character. An interesting read. 3.5 stars

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Details

Bookseller
Garys Books US (US)
Bookseller's Inventory #
012018
Title
A Cure for Suicide: A Novel
Author
Ball, Jesse
Format/Binding
Hardcover
Book Condition
Used - Fine
Jacket Condition
Fine
Quantity Available
2
Edition
1st Edition
ISBN 10
1101870125
ISBN 13
9781101870129
Publisher
Pantheon Books
Place of Publication
New York
Date Published
2015
Keywords
A 51 1 COPY OK 34

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Garys Books

Seller rating:
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Apache Junction, Arizona

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