Mr. Suicide
By Nicole Cushing
Word Horde
Reviewed by Karl Wolff

This book is messed up. I say that with the highest praise. Mr. Suicide by Nicole Cushing is the story of teenage kid living in suburban Louisville, Kentucky. He endures the emotional and psychological abuse from his fundamentalist Christian mother. With an absentee father and a stay-at-home brother, the kid retreats into his mind as a means of escape. One day a voice starts talking to him. The voice calls himself Mr. Suicide and occasionally insists the kid kill himself. He can't stand living at home, he's bullied at school, and his grades are slipping. Unfortunately for Mr. Suicide, the kid remains a stubborn target.

What follows is the story of the kid growing older, waiting until he can move out. Written in second person, the story constantly forces you to confront the ugly, jagged realities the kid has to endure. Writing in second person is a risky gambit that pays off. It reminds me a lot of Nic Kelman's girls: A Paean, also written in second person. The novel perspective doesn't give the reader distance from the subject, creating a claustrophobic intensity. Nicole Cushing's novel is like diving into someone's unalloyed id. Slowly and methodically, the kid goes from being troubled to developing into a full-fledged psychopath.

And he's not likable. At all. But good writing isn't about creating likable characters and writing what you know. Yet the kid's story is compelling. He also has a lot of valuable insights, even if he is an emotionally stunted, violence-prone little bastard. As he reaches rock bottom in the high school pecking order, he becomes acutely aware of what he calls The Ladder. He sees it in people going to work as well. He wants nothing to do with it. This book reads like a demonic love-child of Jean Paul Sartre's Nausea and Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me. Unlike Dexter Morgan, who followed Harry's Code and killed bad guys, this kid makes no qualms with his contempt for middle-class proprieties, Christian morality, and basic hygiene.

As the book progresses, it takes on aspects of a quest narrative with Lovecraftian overtones. The kid shucks off the seductions of Mr. Suicide and becomes enamored with The Great Dark Mouth. I won't spoil the details, but an otherwise garden variety extreme horror novel meanders into the insanity-inducing labyrinth of cosmic horror.

Out of 10/9.0

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Review copy

Nicole Cushing is a Shirley Jackson Award finalist who's written a number of stand-alone novellas and dozens of short stories. Nicole has been referred to as the literary equivalent of the love child between Jack Ketchum and Poppy Z. Bright. Raised in rural Maryland and now living in southern Indiana, Nicole counts master storyteller Edgar Allen Poe as having had a big influence on her as a writer.

In recent weeks, I'd noticed a bit of a buzz about her debut novel and knew I had to check it out. I'm so glad I did. When I opened the book I right away noticed some very positive blurbs from authors I respect a great deal, including Ray Garton and the aforementioned Jack Ketchum.

After finishing Mr. Suicide, it's difficult to believe this is her first published novel. The kind words from so many of her contemporaries are certainly not mere hyperbole. Nicole Cushing delivers the goods in a compelling story told completely in the second person. A bit of an unusual style, but it works so well in this case as we hear the story of a boy who's had thoughts of suicide from the time he was ten until he leaves home at eighteen, and beyond.

Growing up in a mentally abusive family, with no real friends, bullied by kids at school, it's no wonder he's the way he is. Despite all this, the boy manages to deny Mr. Suicide over the years, until his brother introduces him to a low-budget pornographic magazine called Perfect Monsters. The cover features a geriatric, female amputee, naked, heavily wrinkled and doing unspeakable things with her detached artificial leg. That's when things take a marked turn, as Mr. Suicide takes a backseat to a new entity, Great Dark Mouth, who offers something more.

The protagonist in the story is definitely depraved, there are some very disturbing images here, but it's all right at home, in the context of the tale. Filled with richly demented and deformed characters, Mr. Suicide is dark storytelling at it's finest. Just when I thought it couldn't get any better (worse), it does. I loved the use of the Looney Tunes and other cartoon character voices at the end of the book.

By the way, kudos to Zack Mccain for his stunning artwork on the cover.

Mr. Suicide is available in both paperback and e-book formats from Word Horde Publishers.

I can't recommend this book enough. One of the best I've read this year. ( )