Legend of a Suicide (P.S.) - Softcover

"As the title suggests, the stories in Legend of a Suicide approach a private mythos, revisiting, reinvestigating, and reinventing one family's broken past. They also transport us to wild, uncharted places on the Alaskan coast and in the American soul. Throughout, David Vann is a generous, sure-handed guide in some very dangerous territory." -- Stewart O'Nan

"The characters in these stories are extreme in their isolation from one another, whether they come together in a howling wind or in the comforts of a warm kitchen. Here is suicide, infidelity, madness; here are people whose skewed optimism about the next love affair, the next career, the next homestead, proves deadly. . . . Memory, affection for place, the mangled ways we manage to express the love we feel--David Vann is unafraid of the weight and the complication of these things. He is emboldened in these stories to fall headlong into the disorienting wilderness of the human heart and mind." -- Noy Holland

"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

"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

'This is my 'One to watch'. . . . It's stunning, beautifully written, with genuine surprises and a complexity which makes you retrace your steps, wonder what really happened and ponder over the whole scenario for days. I loved it. It's Richard Yates, Annie Proulx territory, and highly recommended."--Sarah Broadhurst, The Bookseller (UK)

"Extraordinary. . . . Reminiscent of Tobias Wolff, Vann's prose is as pure as a gulp of water from an Alaskan stream."--Financial Times

"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

"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

"As primal and unforgiving as the Alaskan wilds where it's set."--Bret Anthony Johnston, Men's Journal

"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.--Tom Bissell, New York Times Book Review

A collection of five semi-autobiographical short stories and a novella depict a boy's confused, guilt-ridden relationship with his suicidal father, set against the backdrop of the Alaskan wilderness. Reprint. 20,000 first printing. A New York Times Notable Pick and Editor's Pick.