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How not to kill yourself : a portrait of the suicidal mind / Clancy Martin.

by Martin, Clancy, 1967- author.

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New York : Pantheon Books, [2023]

Martin, Clancy, 1967-

Suicide -- Psychological aspects.

Suicide -- Prevention.

Authors -- Biography.

Authors, Canadian -- Biography.

9780593317051 (hardcover) :

059331705X (hardcover) :

xxiv, 431 pages ; 25 cm

Preface -- Part I Suicidal tendencies. The suicidal mind -- Is there a death drive? -- I can always just kill myself tomorrow -- They fuck you up / your mum and dad (part I) -- Part II One foot in the grace. Drinking myself to death -- Philosophical suicide -- The sickness unto death: observations from Édouard Levé, David Foster Wallace, and Nelly Arcan -- The afterlife, or, welcome to the psych ward -- Part III The long road back. Relapse is part of recovery -- They fuck you up / your mum and dad (part II) -- A good death -- Appendix I. Tools for crisis -- Appendix II. In case of emergency: interviews on staying alive.

"The last time Clancy Martin tried to kill himself was in his basement with a dog leash. It was one of over ten attempts throughout the course of his life. But he didn't die, and like many who consider taking their own lives, he hid the attempt from his wife, family, coworkers, and students, slipping back into his daily life with a hoarse voice, a raw neck, and series of vague explanations. In How Not to Kill Yourself, Martin chronicles his multiple suicide attempts in an intimate depiction of the mindset of someone obsessed with self-destruction. He argues that, for the vast majority of suicides, an attempt does not just come out of the blue, nor is it merely a violent reaction to a particular crisis or failure, but is the culmination of a host of long-standing issues. He also looks at the thinking of a number of great writers who have attempted suicide and detailed their experiences (such as David Foster Wallace, Yiyun Li, Akutagawa, Nelly Arcan, and others), at what the history of philosophy has to say both for and against suicide, and at the experiences of people who have reached out to him across the years. The result is a work that powerfully gives voice to what to many has long been incomprehensible, while showing those presently struggling with suicidal thoughts that they are not alone, and that the desire to kill oneself--like other self-destructive desires--is almost always temporary and avoidable"-- Provided by publisher.

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