David Vann’s Legend of a Suicide begins not with a death, but with those left behind:

My mother and I survived. Not having taken off to any heights, we had nowhere to fall. We drank clear bouillon soup with a few peas in it after my uncle called and told us the news, and in the evening, as the light in the sky faded to blue and then black, we sat in our living room, in the fluorescent glow of the fish tank, watching.

All of the short stories in this collection (really four short stories and one central novella) revolve around death and the consequences any sort of death or loss can have on those whose lives intersect with it.  From the quiet loss of an ex-wife and son, to the desperation of a father, Vann explores facets of grief and sadness.

The shorter stories feel more like snapshots, moments in time where the repercussions of suicide and strife find their outlet in the responses of a boy and those around him. The reactions run the gamut, from meditations on nature and fish (a theme throughout the book) to lights, headlamps, and doors blown out in a wave of gun violence. Vann’s touch with the various versions of the protagonist in these stories is light but deft, each is subtly different, each story an imperfect echo of the original event. Each a different reaction to, and sometimes a different version of, the event that prompted it

These are not comfortable stories to read; there are no answers and very few glimmers of hope, and Vann is unwavering in his depictions of the reality of life with, or as, an unstable person.  That said, the language itself is lovely and the descriptions of the natural beauty of the Alaskan wild serve as a shimmering backdrop for the despair and desperation that often meet the people that wander through the stories.

It is always a temptation, when a work is admittedly inspired by an autobiographical event, to place the author in the position of the protagonist.  To assume that, no matter the distance between “inspired” and “truth”, that what the characters are saying is what the author would say, but it should never be forgotten that a legend is what may be true wrapped in what might have happened. Vann’s own Legend is no different, revisiting and revising the suicide, questioning the selfishness and the sacrifice, wondering what it would be like, if it had been different.

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