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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
  • Good
  • Hardcover
Condition
Good
ISBN 10
1101870125
ISBN 13
9781101870129
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Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
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About This Item

Pantheon, 7/21/2015. Hardcover. Good. Hardback with dust jacket in good condition. Some highlighting in the book.

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
Cheryl's Books US (US)
Bookseller's Inventory #
PBLAUG1817C0162977
Title
A Cure for Suicide: A Novel
Author
Ball, Jesse
Format/Binding
Hardcover
Book Condition
Used - Good
Quantity Available
1
ISBN 10
1101870125
ISBN 13
9781101870129
Publisher
Pantheon
Place of Publication
New York:
Date Published
7/21/2015
X weight
18 oz

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About the Seller

Cheryl's Books

Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Biblio member since 2007
Vinemont, Alabama

About Cheryl's Books

Cheryl\'s Books specializing in new, used, rare, and out of print books.

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