If you want to say 'fuck you,' there's no louder way. At the very end of the book, Wickersham writes that her father's suicide was 'emphatic.' She writes, A minister, concerned, asks, 'Do you think he might have been depressed?' Wickersham snaps, 'Gee, I guess he must have been.'īitterness is strewn along the road like trash at a mountain picnic spot. The family and family friends may survive, but they seem to do so filled with vituperation. Beginning with his sudden exit, her father's self-imposed death takes over her life, her mother's life, and presumably, the lives of many others. The Suicide Index, however, is not really an 'Index.' It is more like an extended suicide note. The local police tell Wickersham that they treat the two of them equally. Suicides, like murders, have many suspects. Or possibly it was his silence: Wickersham tells us he didn't confide in her, or her mother ('he never tells me anything') or, as far as they know, anyone else. Maybe it was because Paul failed at every business venture he tried. although the author is convinced that he was gay. Perhaps it can be blamed on his wife's boyfriend. Ulcerative colitis.') His wife and children? Who was to blame? The creditors? (Some large debts were coming due.) The grandfather? (Paul was beaten, spectacularly so, when he was growing up.) Sickness? (In his sixty-one years, he had had 'Kidney stones.

One morning, Joan Wickersham's father Paul got up, made a cup of coffee for his sleeping wife, took a pistol from its hiding place in the closet, went to the study, sat down in his comfy armchair, stuck the pistol in his mouth, and killed himself.

The Suicide Index by Joan Wickersham