Legend of a Suicide - by David Vann (Paperback)

About the Book

This stunning collection of five short stories and a novella centers on the suicide of an Alaskan father. [O]ne of the most striking fictional debuts in recent memory.--Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

Book Synopsis

"The reportorial relentlessness of [David] Vann's imagination often makes his fiction seem less written than chiseled. A small, lovely book has been written out of his large and evident pain."--New York Times Book Review

In Legend of a Suicide, his heartbreaking semi-autobiographical debut story-collection, David Vann relates the story of a young man trying to come to terms with the guilt and pain of his father's suicide. The wild outback of the author's native Alaska acts as the ideal backdrop for this collage of six stories--a novella and five shorts--and mirrors the author's own psychological wilderness. From "an important new voice in American literature" (Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain) comes an unforgettable exploration of the tragic gaps between one boy and his father.

From the Back Cover

In semiautobiographical stories set largely in David Vann's native Alaska, Legend of a Suicide follows Roy Fenn from his birth on an island at the edge of the Bering Sea to his return thirty years later to confront the turbulent emotions and complex legacy of his father's suicide.

Review Quotes

"The most powerful, and pure, piece of writing I have read for a very long time. This book squeezes more life out of the first 100 pages than most books could manage in 1,000, which is pretty impressive, considering it's a book about death." - Ross Raisin, author of Out Backward
"In his portrayal of a young son's love for his lost father David Vann has created a stunning work of fiction: surprising, beautiful, and intensely moving." - Nadeem Aslam, author of Maps for Lost Lovers and The Wasted Vigil
"The reportorial relentlessness of Vann's imagination often makes his fiction seem less written than chiseled. A small, lovely book has been written out of his large and evident pain. 'A father, after all, ' Vann writes, 'is a lot for a thing to be.' A son is also a lot for a thing to be; so is an artist. With Legend of a Suicide, David Vann proves himself a fine example of both." - Tom Bissell, New York Times Book Review
"With Legend of a Suicide, Vann looks into the dark and isolated heart of the American soul. It is a devastating journey that is difficult to read but impossible to put down and equally impossible to forget." - June Sawyers, San Francisco Chronicle
"The book is as dark, stormy, and beautiful as the ragged Aleutian coast." - National Geographic Adventure
"A piece of relentless, heartbreaking brilliance that bears comparison with Cormac McCarthy's The Road." - The Weekend Australian
"A truly great writer." - Irish Sunday Independent
"For the imagery alone and for the sentences, the book would be a treasure." - Colm Tóibín, London Observer
"As primal and unforgiving as the Alaskan wilds where it's set." - Bret Anthony Johnston, Men's Journal
"A reckoning. . . . A very difficult book for the very best reasons: it is written with great honesty and journeys unflinchingly into darkness. . . . A message of profound sympathy and sadness, anger and regret, Legend of a Suicide is the melting away of one man's past, and the reshaping of tragedy into art." - Greg Schutz, Fiction Writers Review
"A richly gifted newcomer." - Sunday Times (London)
"The writing in these stories, informed by both the empirical and the lyrical, is heart-wrenching and gorgeous." - Lorrie Moore
"Brilliant . . . Vann's prose follows the sinews of Cormac McCarthy and Hemingway, yet has its own nimble flex." - The Times (London)
"Vengeful yet sorrowing and empathetic, plausible yet dreamlike, and completely absorbing." - Christopher Tayler, The Guardian
"David Vann's extraordinary and inventive set of fictional variations on his father's death will surely become an American classic." - The Times Literary Supplement (London)
"A reckoning. . . . A message of profound sympathy and sadness, anger and regret, Legend of a Suicide is the melting away of one man's past and the reshaping of tragedy into art. . . . [It] journeys unflinchingly into darkness." - Greg Schutz, Fiction Writers Review
"A powerful new voice has emerged in fiction." - Sunday Times (London)
"David Vann's dark and strange book twists through natural forces and compressed emotions towards an extraordinary and dreamlike conclusion. One of the most gripping debuts I've ever read." - Philip Hoare, author Leviathan, winner of the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize
"Headlong narrative pacing, a memorable train-wreck father who gives Richard Russo's characters a run for their money, and a sure, sharp, inviting voice. So hard to put down that I am thinking of suing David Vann for several hours of lost sleep." - Lionel Shriver, author of So Much For That and The Post-Birthday World