Reviews

• Interesting read!

• ‘Imagine Me Gone’ is the second novel by the prizewinning American writer Adam Haslett. His first novel ‘Union Atlantic Was set in the banking and military world in the post 9/11 world. In ‘Imagine Me Gone’ , the unsettled family at the centre of this book write imaginatively about their pain, they enjoy the words they create and have some belief that to find the right words to describe pain is to make it more tolerable. They are asking how life can be so agonising and so wonderful at the same time. The story is told in alternating chapters by different members of the family in sufficiently different styles of writing which merges thoughts and speech. John’s wife, Margaret, talks in a congenial comfortable conventional language that’s rooted in the present tense of the everyday. Michael is more stylised, often imitating writing styles to sometimes absurd comic effect. On a sea voyage to England he writes increasingly ludicrous letters to his aunt describing his brother Alex’s kidnapping by sex traffickers. As an adult Michael fills in a psychiatric questionnaire with details of his life that are all the more distressing for being half-framed in the authoritative language of government institutions. John’s voice is in the style of the matter-of-fact English private school where he started as a schoolboy. The book starts with the suicide of Michael, who had been living on an island with his brother Alex of the coast of Maine. Their father, John, killed himself ten years earlier, in this same area and this is the act which casts a long shadow over the events of ordinary family life pervaded with a tense unease. The book seems to me to be about the ordeals of family life for those trying to sense it with meaning.

• Haslett has crafted a haunting, beautifully-rendered novel about how generational mental illness in a family can ravage a devastating and far-reaching path of destruction through the lives of the afflicted and the healthy. All are hyper-vigilant, wary and self-contained, each scrambling to cope, with varying degrees of success, while shoring up those who are in the downward spiral. The book could easily be a memoir, simply because the characters are that finely-nuanced and expertly depicted. It is fiction at its best, as each character is so starkly vivid and fully wrought. Each musing and frailty rings true. Anxiety and depression are so well-articulated that the reader can literally feel the cloaking, foreboding despair. Eldest sibling, Michael, is trapped in a repetitive loop of inertia and frantic longing, perpetually unable to envision or create a promising future. He clings to an obsession with music, academia and ill-fated relationships, but cannot parlay his considerable intelligence into steady employment or sustainability. Therapy and medications provide a brief respite, but with diminishing results. All of the family members are grappling, struggling and trudging forward as crisis and loss reverberate among this fragile cluster of relatives. His mother and siblings attempt to help Michael, but they too, are wrestling with the pall cast by the patriarch’s legacy. There are bright spots, thankfully, and some wry humor, but the tone is predominantly bleak. This is a serious book that dares to take the reader down the rabbit hole to reveal the realities of depression and anxiety. One would be hard-pressed to find a more accurate description of this particular stubborn darkness and the nearly-constant unease and agitation. The audience for this book may be clinicians who wish to immerse themselves in a realistic depiction of their clent’s painful personal experiences or merely those who appreciate a well-written story. It will most profoundly resonate with anyone familiar with mental illness in all its guises. Many will strongly identify with Michael as he stumbles, and ache when he fails. This is a good book. Frustrating, pensive and deeply worthwhile, but dark. Upon finishing it, one feels somewhat compelled to shake it loose from the mind and go in search of sunlight.

• I enjoyed every word, even the sadness. And I understood much more about the suffering of people with depression, anxiety or psychosis. And the suffering of their families. It will help me - hopefully - to better understand the people with mental disturbances in my family.

• This book is an emotional read that can become heavy at times. The story and the theme are ones that many have to consider daily. Worth the time to read.

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