SUICIDE TANGO

This debut novel features a therapist who’s shaken from his doldrums by a fiery, take-no-prisoners teenager whom he must talk out of committing suicide.

As a teen, Dr. Jon Harley Moore wanted to be a rock star. But instead of following his heroes Jimi Hendrix and Brian Johnson (of AC/DC) onstage, he became a therapist. At his Santa Barbara, California, practice, the 40-year-old specializes in treating suicidal teens. Lately, he’s lost the passion he once had, and has taken to prescribing pills and avoiding talking to his patients as much as possible. This changes after 17-year-old Emma “Tripsy” South walks into his office. Tripsy’s just finished a 30-day stint in a psychiatric hospital after a psych evaluation with Dr. Christine Kelley, whose notes reveal the girl’s 181 IQ, Indigo/Lavender aura, and that she’s “NOT suicidal. She is gifted and has a definite agenda.” What Jon can’t help but see is a leggy, brash young woman who suffers from sensory overload. Tripsy is sick of everything, from her parents’ poodle to “that weenie president” who “gets in my face in my own living room.” Over the next few months, Jon allows Tripsy some unconventional therapy, which includes smoking copious “hooters” (joints); talking to other patients, like the nonverbal child Tyra Bailey; and brainstorming colorful ways to commit suicide, including throwing a party beforehand. And yet Jon believes that the key to Tripsy’s treatment is her journal, about which the Indigo Child is extremely secretive. While the pair’s sessions cover numerous mature topics, like religion and politics, he must keep in mind that she’s said, “I’ve only got one year left in me.” The conceit at play in this novel is that Tripsy encourages Jon to write a book about suicide. Readers get a series of philosophical—though darkly comedic—discussions and a genuine primer on handling suicidal teens. The doctor explains that “we tend to want our children to face reality as if these kids actually understood adult reality.” But for kids who are struggling emotionally “time is compressed, much like a Slinky at rest.” Startling data reveals that “females are twice as likely to attempt suicide, but males are four times more likely to succeed.” Yet flavoring the narrative much more strongly is the obvious attraction that Jon, an adult, feels toward Tripsy, a teen. Another novel might tread lightly with the protagonist’s fawning, but here Jon continuously indulges in lines like “Her laughter was filled with a thousand beautiful harmonics that sang to every atom in my body.” Later, he notices that “she was more womanly than ever.” If readers can accommodate these eyebrow-raising moments, they’ll next have to contend with Tripsy’s lingo, as when she threatens to “chop off Mr. C.O. Jones”—Jon’s cojones, that is. Still, author South’s work does convey loneliness well, as the doctor pines for a partner his own age, and Tripsy wishes for spiritual stimulation. The illustrations by MarinaK (A Toddler’s Travelogue, 2017) allow breathing room between often heavy subject matter. Intriguing appendices outline Tripsy’s suicide “cookbook” and Jon’s theory of Neurophysicochemistry.

A challenging black comedy that aims to entertain and save lives.