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"Most who encounter the ordinary, if awful stresses and losses handed out by life handle them well or reasonably well," Jamison assures us in "Night Falls Fast." "In fact, very few people commit suicide under even the most terrible and prolonged situations of physical or mental suffering."

Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide By Kay Redfield Jamison Alfred A. Knopf, 320 pages Nonfiction Buy Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide by Kay Redfield Jamison For more information on suicide, visit drkoop.com's Mental Health Center.

The ones who break are "biologically vulnerable," suffering from "depression, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or crippling anxiety." Jamison herself is "a biologically vulnerable" woman who tried to kill herself when she was 28 with an overdose of Lithium. She failed, of course. Picked herself up. And began a lifelong study of her malady. The result is "Night Falls Fast."

Jamison's treatise on suicide takes a serious tone, and is neither an easy nor a cheerful read. The book's characters eat the gun. Drink Drano. Leap into volcanoes. One woman climbs into a lions' den. A little girl tries to jump from a speeding car because "I am very hungry. I bite people and try to eat them up." The only intentionally "light" moment is the presentation of the joke/poem "Résumé" by Dorothy Parker:

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

Although we may chuckle at Parker's gallows humor, let's not forget that the poet tried to off herself three times. What about us? When I was 15 I tried to kill myself à la Romeo and Juliet. Not to go into the gory details too deeply, but my girlfriend and I were kicked out of our respective suburban households. We'd made a death pact, but my love sensibly backed out of the deal, leaving me on my own to attempt to kill myself. I was lucky that I didn't succeed, and now attribute the whole thing to a passing adolescent phase. At the time, I did not suffer the highs and lows of manic depression. I was not schizophrenic and I am pretty sure I was not clinically depressed.

Although my situation was just bad suburban melodrama, I was sure Jamison would say my take was wrong. Sure, teenagers are in hormonal overdrive, but that alone never leads to suicide. Jamison attributes the 120 percent rise in children's killing themselves to a changing age of puberty, and the age in which depression first occurs.

I couldn't understand how Jamison could exclude unfortunate events in a person's life -- which would change the way anyone looks at the world -- and attribute all suicides to psychotic illness. So I went to her for some answers, to find out if suicide is truly only the domain of the mentally ill.

Do people at book signings start telling you their suicide stories?

Sometimes.

Are you a repository for suicide stories?

I wouldn't put it that way, but yes.

[Bowman tells her his story.]

Were you really depressed?

Not clinically. And I think that there are others like me who aren't manic depressives and still try to kill themselves. But most of the suicide victims that you included in your book have brain-chemistry problems.

Most people go through a lot of difficult things and don't commit suicide. There is generally a depressive component in addition to everything else that is going on.

You write that suicide is never a result of a single factor or event. So back during the Depression, bankruptcy was just the final straw that made brokers leap from their windows?

Yeah. Because you have to look at all the people who went bankrupt and lost their families and lost everything and didn't kill themselves.

And people who are terminally sick generally don't kill themselves?

Overwhelming they do not.

I hope I have the courage and opportunity to kill myself if I get a terminal illness. I know a certain building in New York City without guards in the lobby. You can take an elevator to the 31st floor where the hallway is lined with unlocked windows. Down below -- just an empty alley. It seems smart to know about such buildings. Is this kind of consideration abnormal?

It is and it isn't. It's concerning that you think about it that much. It's just something I would put in the back of my head -- it's something to deal with. I mean, how old are you?

Forty.

I would say it's premature to be going into that much planning.

Next page | More women try; more men succeed