Critical Praise

"As the title suggests, the stories in Legend of a Suicide approach a private mythos, revisiting, reinvestigating and reinventing one family’s broken past. They also transport us to wild, uncharted places on the Alaskan coast and in the American soul. Throughout, David Vann is a generous, surehanded guide in some very dangerous territory."

—Stewart O'Nan, author of Last Night at the Lobster and Snow Angels: A Novel

"Headlong narrative pacing, a memorable train-wreck father who gives Richard Russo’s characters a run for their money, and a sure, sharp, inviting voice. So hard to put down that I am thinking of suing David Vann for several hours of lost sleep."

—Lionel Shriver, author of So Much For That and The Post-Birthday World

"The reportorial relentlessness of [David] Vann’s imagination often makes his fiction seem less written than chiseled. A small, lovely book has been written out of his large and evident pain."

—New York Times Book Review

"With Legend of a Suicide, Vann looks into the dark and isolated heart of the American soul. It is a devastating journey that is difficult to read but impossible to put down and equally impossible to forget."

—June Sawyers, San Francisco Chronicle