‘Imagine Me Gone’ – Adam Haslett (2016)
We thought this would be a good book review to start with, given the proximity to World Suicide Prevention Day on 10th September.
I’ve not been so bowled over by a book in a long time, so this was a very welcome surprise. I loved it almost from the first page, curious to know why it all happened but always feeling a sort of dreadful inevitability about the story.
The characters are tragic but so relatable that there wasn’t a single one I couldn’t empathise with. It’s not a happy tale, but neither is it depressingly sad. The story is very sensitively told, and I would absolutely recommend it.
Quotes from the book:
“It’s impossible, what I’m trying to do. To say goodbye without telling them I’m leaving”
“It struck me then, for the first time, how unethical anxiety is, how it voids the reality of other people by conscripting them as palliatives for your own fear”
“You don’t want to think about it, but there’s an ethical limit to what anyone should have to endure… it’s just cruelty by another means, requiring a person to stay alive.”
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