by Will Carver
SYNOPSIS
Eli Hagin can’t finish anything.
He hates his job, but can’t seem to quit. He doesn’t want to be with his girlfriend, but doesn’t know how end things with her, either. Eli wants to write a novel, but he’s never taken a story beyond the first chapter.
Eli also has trouble separating reality from fiction.
When his best friend kills himself, Eli is motivated, for the first time in his life, to finally end something himself, just as Mike did…
Except sessions with his therapist suggest that Eli’s most recent ‘first chapters’ are not as fictitious as he had intended… and a series of text messages that Mike received before his death point to something much, much darker…
REVIEW
Eli is a struggling author, who despite desperately wanting to quit his mundane job, can't write more than the first chapter of every novel he attempts to create.
Mike is Eli's best friend who has his own demons to deal with - a depression which leaves him wanting to kill himself, but never quite enough to go through with it.
Jackie is Eli's long-term girlfriend who is also having an affair. If Eli knew, he wouldn't really care. He actually wants to break up with her but can't seem to complete that either.
When Mike finally commits suicide, it leaves Eli and Jackie stunned but at the same time, they are finally in a position to make the changes they need to in their lives. If the pair are both better off without Mike around, this raises the question... Did either of them give Mike the last push he needed to end his life on Thursday?
This is my fourth Will Carver book and I've realised now that you have to brace yourself before you start reading, because you never know exactly what you are going to experience... and, it is an experience, rather than just reading a story. His books make me sit back and think more than any other books I've read. They take you to places you usually try to avoid, discuss topics you try to avoid thinking about, and force you to confront issues that are normally taboo or uncomfortable.
As someone who is a bit of a perfectionist, I did find it very frustrating that Eli wasn't able to get past the beginning of any story he tried to write or tasks he tried to complete. The first chapters he had written were really intriguing and left me wanting more, but they were simply left unfinished, as were the conversations Eli had with his friends and fake therapist. What this created for me as the reader, was an incredibly claustrophobic and anxiety inducing situation where you just start to get involved in one aspect of the story, when it suddenly changes direction again and again. I was left constantly a little bit on edge, which I guess is a reflection of the exasperation being felt by Eli throughout the story.
I loved the way Suicide Thursday had touches of an epistolary novel. The 'book within a book' approach by using the many first chapters Eli had written, meant that different elements of the relationships between the three main characters could be explored in different ways through these ideas. At the same time, the text exchanges between Mike and the unknown recipient added the layer of mystery that gave the story it's dark edge.
The character cameos and various easter eggs dotted around the book were a fantastic addition and made me want to go back and read through all of the author's books to see if there was anything I had missed this time around. If you are already part of the #CarverCult, then you will want to run out and grab this book for your collection. If you are new to the author then this dark, fiendishly clever but poignant novel is the perfect place to start!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Will Carver is the international bestselling author of the January David series and the critically acclaimed, mind-blowingly original Detective Pace series that includes Good Samaritans (2018), Nothing Important Happened Today (2019) and Hinton Hollow Death Trip (2020), all of which were ebook bestsellers and selected as books of the year in the mainstream international press. Nothing Important Happened Today was longlisted for the Goldsboro Glass Bell Award 2020 and Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year. Hinton Hollow Death Trip was longlisted for Guardian Not the Booker Prize, and was followed by three standalone literary thrillers, The Beresford, Psychopaths Anonymous (both optioned for TV) and The Daves Next Door. He lives in Reading with his family.
Thanks to Anne Cater - @RandomTTours, Will Carver - @will_carver and Orenda Books - @OrendaBooks for the opportunity to read and review.
Fiction: Thriller / Psychological Thriller
Publisher: Orenda Books
ISBN: 978-1914585388
Pages: 276pp