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London Book Groupies

Members of The London Book Groupies review Legend of a Suicide by David Vann

The London Book Groupies has been meeting for over five years in members' homes across London. We take it in turns to choose the next book so everyone has an opportunity to promote their interests. The highlight of our book-loving year is 'Book Group Christmas' which incorporates 'Poetry picks' and our annual awards 'The Book Groupies'. We believe that thoughtful people + red wine + tapas = book group success! 'Legend of a Suicide' is a collection of four short stories and one novella that explore the author's fictionalised response to his father's suicide. The book divided the group and provoked a highly spirited discussion. Our appreciation and understanding of the novel was significantly improved through debate, making it a good choice for a reading group. In the novella, the original award-winning short story that the novel is based on, 15-year old Roy agrees to join his father in the Alaskan wilderness for a year: they are living on the edge, both physically and mentally.

The sense of foreboding is chilling as Roy's father repeatedly makes life-threatening mistakes that reveal his ineptitude for looking after his son and their existence becomes increasingly fragile. Roy quickly comes to realise that his father's mental health is far from stable and that it is down to him to ensure their survival. The fast pace through the central novella is gripping in places as events snowball towards a conclusion of shocking proportions.

A brave first novel, 'Legend of a Suicide'confounds the reader's expectations and challenges the conventional reader/narrator relationship. For some of us the sense of confusion and disruption created by the curious structure of the novel was a powerful evocation of the author's own experience when his father killed himself.

Grotesque in the style of the Coen Brothers and crude in parts, 'Legend of a Suicide' packs a punch to the gut. However, most of the group was left perplexed, uncertain how such shock tactics contributed to the overall effect.

We really enjoyed the evocative description of Alaska and sympathetic portrayal of boy and father struggling to survive in the wilderness. While some of us found the macabre humour rather tasteless, 'Legend' is surprisingly funny in parts, taking the reader on an emotional rollercoaster, and perhaps echoing the author's response to his father's untimely death. The additional chapters that bookend the original short story felt awkward and rudely bolted on betraying the book's short story origins. Similarly, there was no obvious rationale for the curious structure and some of us felt that this distracted rather than enhanced our appreciation of the novel.

The ending was disappointing with the final chapter failing to live up to the quality of the previous chapters. We felt that ending with the fourth chapter may have had more impact. 'Legend of a Suicide' is certainly in no way predictable or formulaic. Some of us found it too uncomfortable, as the reader is confronted with a series of increasingly horrific descriptions and events; others felt that such an aggressive approach led to a better understanding of the author's response to his father's suicide.