Today
One of the early candidates for our favorite offbeat book of 1997 is . . . Or Not To Be (Riverhead Books), Marc Etkind's recent anthology of suicide notes. Compiling three centuries' worth of notes by theme or similarity--self-destructive artist and people who have jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge each get their own section --the book is sure to be denounced as exploitation or morbid sensationalism.
But Etkind--by day a producer and director for television's Discovery Channel--argues that reading people's final thoughts provides a window into the suicidal mind, a vivid illustration of the distorted logic that leads people to take their own lives. For example, the notes are typically strewn with words like must and never, suggesting that the authors' thinking had become overly black and white. And the letters often dwell on such mundane matters as reminding the survivors to buy presents for upcoming birthdays--perhaps a sign that the departed was not adequately addressing the key issue. On the other hand, few notes yield any profound insights. After all, observes Etkind, if the writers were truly thinking clearly, most probably wouldn't have chosen death in the first place.
