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A man and a woman have moved into a small house in a small village. The woman is an "examiner," the man, her "claimant." The examiner is both doctor and guide, charged with teaching the claimant a series of simple functions: this is a chair, this is a fork, this is how you meet people. She makes notes in her journal about his progress: he is showing improvement yet his dreams are troubling. One day the examiner brings the claimant to a party, where he meets Hilda, a charismatic but volatile woman whose surprising assertions throw everything the claimant has learned into question.
What is this village? Why is he here? And who is Hilda? A fascinating novel of love, illness, despair, and betrayal, A Cure for Suicide is the most captivating novel yet from one of our most audacious and original young writers.
"Starred Review. Whatever the source of this book's elusive magic, it should cement Ball's reputation as a technical innovator whose work delivers a powerful emotional impact." - Publishers Weekly
"Ball imagines a spare, spooky, muffled realm of continual surveillance and absolute control ... Ball slyly exposes the survival-focused aspects of human interactions, from small talk to shared meals ... a tragic love affair further complicates the disquieting and profound mystery of it all." - Booklist
"This may be Ball's most self-contained work, but it's also one of his most fragile and one that may not hold up under focused scrutiny by a wider audience." - Kirkus
"The School of the Art Institute writing professor follows his well-received Silence Once Begun with this experimental tale of a man simply known as the 'claimant,' who, with the help of a mysterious woman, must relearn how to function in society." - "Great Summer Reads", Chicago Magazine
"A poet by trade, Ball understands the economy of language better than most fiction writers today." - "18 Brilliant Books You Won't Want To Miss This Summer," The Huffington Post
This information about A Cure for Suicide was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Joe Lieske
Jesse Ball was born in New York in 1978. The author of fourteen books, most recently, the novel How To Set a Fire and Why. His works have been published to acclaim in many parts of the world and translated into more than a dozen languages. He is on the faculty at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, won the 2008 Plimpton Prize, was longlisted for the National Book Award, and has been a fellow of the NEA, Creative Capital, and Guggenheim Foundation.
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