“George Howe Colt’s authoritative volume bears witness to the modern suicide pandemic, a crisis from which we tend too readily to avert our eyes. Rigorous, wide-ranging, informed, and humane, this book details with shocking lucidity the peril that is all around us. It can offer no real solutions, but does provide much sorely needed wisdom; it will not arrest the contagion, but it could save some lives.”
—Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon
“Remarkable . . . A great and moving triumph . . . The reportage is stunning in its breadth and detail. . . . What finally makes this book so impressive are the scrupulously documented, intimate narratives that Colt reconstructs that in a sense bring back to life a half dozen suicide victims and allow us to see how their worlds closed in on them. . . . Colt is at his finest—which is very fine indeed—when telling us how ordinary people can find themselves in despair. And he doesn’t do this in a sentimental fashion, in a manner that suggests easy solutions or follows party lines. . . . Not only is this a masterly piece of journalism, it is also, strangely enough, a profoundly life-affirming study.”
—L.A. Times
“Monumental . . . The most comprehensive, illuminating look at suicide to date.”
—Publishers Weekly
“The text includes eye-opening case histories that give the narrative the suspenseful appeal of an investigatory saga . . . a truly comprehensive and thoroughgoing discussion—one of the first of its kind.”
—Booklist
“Imagine a book about a forbidden subject at once so matter-of-fact and thorough that it could be the perfect catalog and as sure-footed and moving as a good novel. This is what George Howe Colt has given us.”
—Boston Globe
“[Colt’s] own aching sensitivity to the subject suffuses every page of his encyclopedic work, The Enigma of Suicide, an utterly fascinating, admirably well-written and sad book. . . . The literature on the subject—and the survivors—are greatly enriched by his evocative treatment of it.”
—Dava Sobel, New York Times Book Review
“Colt’s histories are superior to many psychiatric case studies because they include the devastating effects which suicide has on parents, teachers, schoolmates and others who knew the adolescent . . . [A] thoughtful, excellent book. It touches the lives of all of us and deserves the widest possible readership.”
—Washington Post
“A fascinating history and account of what suicide is and how suicide prevention is actually practiced. It is the best, easy-to-read, comprehensive book written by a layperson for the lay reader with which to enter the world of ‘suicidology.’ ”
—Edwin S. Shneidman, professor of thanatology emeritus,