Dashing and handsome, he used his charm to invade the upper reaches of the U.S. But before he wrote books for kids, he was a British spy in Washington DC during the Second World War. Roald Dahl is best known as a wildly successful writer of children’s books, such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach. And scroll down for the extended interview with Joan Wickersham.Ġ743294599 Under headings about suicide like “anger about”, “other people’s stories about”, “possible ways to talk to a child about”, Wickersham explores all the facets of coming to terms with her father’s suicide.THE SUICIDE INDEX is a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award. Wickersham puts her father’s death in order through an ingenious narrative construction. You’re saying “I’m gone and you can’t even be sure who it is that’s gone, because you never knew me.” As she writes in her powerful new memoir, THE SUICIDE INDEX, “When you kill yourself, you kill every memory everyone has of you.

Why did he do it? How could he, a loving father and husband, subject his family to the anguish of dealing with losing him in such a violent manner? These unanswerable questions fueled Wickersham’s search to reconcile her the father she knew with the man who killed himself. Sixteen years ago, Joan Wickersham’s father got up one morning from the bed he shared with his wife, walked into his study, and shot himself.

Host Francesca Rheannon talks with writer Joan Wickersham about her powerful new memoir, 0156033801. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS Jennet Conant Joan Wickersham

The Suicide Index by Joan Wickersham