Sinkhole: A Legacy of Suicide

After her father took his own life in 2009 at age 77, poet Patterson (Threnody) delved into her family’s legacy of suicide—the result is a stirring look at how history, environment, and cultural pressures all played a role. In an attempt to better understand her reticent father, Patterson left her home in Minneapolis for Pittsburg, Kans., her parents’ birthplace, to conjure the “three imagined final days,” of her father, his father, and her maternal grandfather, each of whom died by suicide and shared a “troubled relationship with masculinity.” As she sifts through police reports, she weaves in cogent insights from psychological studies—including one psychologist’s decoding of suicide notes to get to the “psychache” he believed was underpinning them—while unpacking a culture of repression that led her troubled forebears to weather their inner turmoil silently. Equally poignant are Patterson’s personal struggles—namely her reluctance around becoming a mother in the shadow of her family’s deep suffering: “Grief and parenthood had become intertwined for me. When my father died... the future was frightening.” While there’s catharsis delivered in the book’s final pages, it feels rushed in comparison to the evocative familial history that proceeds it. Even so, Patterson’s lyrical and discerning treatment of a global “psychological crisis” will keep readers transfixed. (Sept.)