History of a Suicide: My Sister’s Unfinished Life

Jill Bialosky writes a probing memoir about her younger sister’s short life and tragic suicide at the age of twenty-one. The loss of her sister took a profound toll on Bialosky and she felt the need to understand more about both her sister’s life and the mystery of suicide. Her sister Kim was abandoned by her father (Bialosky’s stepfather for a time), influenced by her mother’s bouts of depression, and involved in a relationship with an abusive boyfriend. Bialosky, also a poet, has a gift for words and makes this book, despite its heavy subject matter, easy to read. She infuses her book with ruminations from notable literary figures from Melville to Plath. History of a Suicide: My Sister’s Unfinished Life should appeal to fans of memoirs, particularly those involving the process of grief, such as Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking.

-Elizabeth