HOW NOT TO KILL YOURSELF

A recovering alcoholic reflects on his experiences with suicidal ideation.

Novelist and philosophy professor Martin, the author of How To Sell and other books, has survived more than 10 suicide attempts. In his disturbing, thoughtfully composed self-analysis, the author admits to chronicling oscillating between hating his life and being grateful to be alive. Married three times and the father to five children, Martin harbors a deep understanding of others who suffer with the same dark feelings of despair, including several suicidal relatives in his deeply dysfunctional family. Each of the memoir’s three sections correspond to distinctly pivotal periods in his life. The author considers how complex and pervasive thoughts of self-annihilation initially infiltrate someone’s psyche. While mining his own experiences, including chilling anecdotes about his “gun-in-mouth phase,” he describes the suicidal histories of notable writers and celebrities (Kate Spade, Anthony Bourdain, Robin Williams). While experts impart captivating psychological explanations, Martin’s perspective inspires the most incisive and disquieting passages. Sections on his murky descent into alcoholism smoothly dovetail with accounts of the author’s candid, heartfelt work toward making peace with life and pages of proactive “tools for crisis” for anyone considering suicide. As a philosopher, Martin provides sharp insight about how two distinct historical luminaries—Buddha and Freud—both postulated that the human “death drive” is as fundamental to our psychology as our desire to eat or have sex. Martin’s belief that suicidal people can “see into the world of ghosts in a way that sturdier folks cannot” is as fascinating as his attempts to draw correlations between suicide and theories on addictive thinking. Not one to gloss over any aspect of his difficult journey, the author dissects the thorny dilemma that has tormented him since childhood. With dark humor intact, he humanizes it in a way that makes it palatable for readers chronically haunted by suicide—or those whose lives have been touched by it.

Disquieting, deeply felt, eye-opening, and revelatory.