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Book Review: "Legend of a Suicide" by David Vann

5/5 - dealing with death and adults in love...

By Annie KapurPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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I have read quite a few books about people killing themselves or contemplating suicide. There seems to be this narrative of having been overtly depressed so to that it is reflected in the language whether it is narrated by the victim or not. But there is something different about “Legend of a Suicide” in the sense that there is not this sense of desperate grief but instead this question of why. There is this question of why because of the fact the victim of the suicide is someone whom the protagonist and narrator viewed as not only successful financially but also as a person who was moving on with their lives. Now, there is an argument of the fact that people commit suicide when they believe people least expect it as to not worry anyone in advance, but the scene in which the fact does kill himself is something else entirely. There is this sense of time stopping, but there seems to be none of this helplessness that surrounds it. In actuality, the scene is pretty disgusting. The father shoots himself in the head and his own brother finds him later on when the birds have already been pecking at him and the flies, eating him. His desecrated corpse is then reported to the child (narrator) and his mother. We then get this flashback upon the parents and why the marriage crumbles into nothingness.

He’s a dentist. He’s financially fair and yet his marriage is being shredded to pieces. When his infidelity is caught as he has been having an affair with a woman who is much younger than he is, his wife is no longer his wife. Both start seeing other people and as his father stays with a woman called Rhoda (whom he was having an affair with) and the relationship is rocky, the narrator’s mother is moving from man to man by week. One of which actually almost shoots and kills her son. From this, we get this sense of loss - assuming he committed suicide because of his marriage deteriorating and his relationship on the rocks. In actuality, it is far, far more complicated than that and we must learn (and we will) that nothing can be assumed when it comes to how the human mind plays us for fools. Nothing can be assumed when everything is right there in front of you.

The writing style is somewhat disgusting at times with a part being actually quite graphic in the first few chapters of the book. When his father buys him his first gun, the narrator is told to shoot at a squirrel and describes in graphic detail how the guts went everywhere and how blood was on everything. This really does set the reader up for other things to come, but I don’t know whether it should have lasted for a whole paragraph when a sentence would have sufficed. At other times, the writing can be confused in order to reflect the life of the narrator. He is confused as to why his parents are no longer going to even try to get back together and why Rhoda is acting strange, he is confused about his mother’s position and his father’s suicide and so much more.

In conclusion, I think that this book really does reflect the young mind when faced with situations that he not only cannot control but situations in which he is left out of decision-making altogether, not even consulted or asked. He is just ordered by the adults upon what he should be doing. But whether he wants to do that is entirely up to him.

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About the Creator

Annie Kapur

190K+ Reads on Vocal.

English Lecturer

🎓Literature & Writing (B.A)

🎓Film & Writing (M.A)

🎓Secondary English Education (PgDipEd)

📍Birmingham, UK

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