An inventive, moving look at the questions suicide leaves behind.
Basurco takes on suicide, grief, and divine judgment in this unusual work of speculative spiritual fiction. In his imagined Heaven, God creates the Suicide Council, a group of prophets and saints assigned to investigate every suicide before judgment is passed. They cannot interfere with free will. Instead, they listen to each person’s story and record the circumstances that led to the final decision, making sure a life is not judged by its last act alone.
The cases range widely, from musicians and athletes to soldiers, parents, and first responders (“The Musician,” “The Sports Idol,” “The Returning Soldier,” and “The First Responder”), with Basurco drawing on Émile Durkheim’s four classifications of suicide to explore loneliness, trauma, guilt, loss, and despair. The similar structure of the individual stories creates some repetition, but their circumstances remain distinct and often affecting. The strongest passages come in the aftermaths, as those left behind wrestle with blame, guilt, and questions that may never have been answered in life. Readers drawn to stories of grief, forgiveness, and the mysteries we leave behind will want to take a look.
***
Victer Hugo Books
First edition, August 2025
ISBN 979-8-9916098-2-1
