Book Review: Together We Will Go

[daley]

I have been on a quest to read any book I can find about suicide pacts.
I already posted four reviews here.

The current one is Together We Will Go by J. Michael Straczynski.

Most books about pacts are only about two people, sometimes romantically involved. I have found fewer books with a pact for a group of people.

In this group there is an organizer, Mark, who buys an old bus, hires a driver, and collects
people across the US to finally drive over a cliff near San Francisco.
The people who joined answered a classified ad Mark posted.

There is a server on the bus, and the participants are expected to open an account and
write about why they chose to end their lives, and document anything they would like about themselves. Forming sort of a collective suicide note.

The book is interspersed with these personal writings, email correspondence, and
what happens to them on the road. This provides a lot of variety and insight into
the characters. The story flies by, and I enjoyed it.

The stories of the characters that board the bus cover a lot of ground: Bi-polar disorder, chronic pain, gender-identity, obesity, old age, terminal illness, substance abuse. There is a
nice balance of some people regretting and getting off the bus, and others
following through. The author writes it from a pro-choice perspective,
but it still manages to be a bit too wholesome - there is too much romance, sex,
partying and drugs than I would have imagined. But due to the characters it's still
believable.

In contrast, the only other pro-choice suicide-group-pact book I found was suicide pact by
John Monarch, which I reviewed before. In that book, some of the characters also
continue to look for love, but things backfire miserably. I feel that John Monarch
is an asher himself, and didn't want to relieve the bleak tone of that book.

I haven't found any more suicide pact fiction, especially of more than two people.
Do you know of any?

 

[failure383]

I haven't found any more suicide pact fiction, especially of more than two people.
Do you know of any?

The Manga "Welcome to the N.H.K" tells the story about a complete social recluse, who barely leaves his room, is drug-addicted, is severely depressed and as an sub-story/arc gets dragged into a suicide pact with other people as miserable as him. The group met on an online message board and travel to an island with an cliff to kill themselves. During the evening, where the other people pass time with a campfire and drinking, he slowly realizes he wants to kill himself as well. They nearly attempt suicide...but they get saved by perfect timing of the saviors and get rescued. The protog attempts suicide a second time near the end of the story, but doesn't die either. It's a rather silly story with a serious undertone, or a serious story with a silly undertone. It probably depends on your point of view.

I don't think it's really worth reading if you are just interested in the suicide arc, because it's not as focused at this, as it is with the severe social withdrawal of the protag, but I got reminded of that Manga, when I read your post about the first book.