Death or Loss

Several of the stories in this collection deal with death or loss in some way. The most obvious story that deals with the theme of death is The Suicide Room. In The Suicide Room, the narrator begins by describing tales of death that four friends share with one another. The first deals with a car accident in which a young girl saw her boyfriend drive his car full of passengers over a cliff. In another, one of the girls talks about her brother's brain injury at birth as a type of death. The narrator tells a story that he has made up of how his grandfather caught on fire while lighting a cigar. Finally, the other boy in the group tells the story of how his aunt died while sitting vigil at the bedside of her dying husband. These stories are serious, though the reader must...