The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order

📚 Why We Recommend It

Grief is a jumble of shards—unruly, sharp, and impossible to sort. But Joan Wickersham does the unthinkable: she tames it with an index. In The Suicide Index, she takes the chaos of her father’s 1991 suicide and arranges it like entries in a reference book, turning fragmented memories, half-told stories, and raw questions into something achingly coherent.

This isn’t just a memoir about loss. It’s a bold experiment in understanding: a daughter sifting through the wreckage of a father she thought she knew, only to find layers of secrecy she never imagined. Wickersham’s voice is unflinching yet tender—she laughs at the absurdity of family quirks, winces at the silence between them, and confronts the brutal truth that even those we love remain mysteries.

What makes this book unforgettable is its structure: the index, that most rigid of forms, becomes a mirror for grief itself—orderly on the surface, but brimming with messy, human truth underneath. By the end, you’re not just reading about her father’s death. You’re reckoning with the fragile, beautiful complexity of every relationship we’re lucky enough to lose.