Recommended Reading for Survivors of Suicide Loss
No single book can possibly encompass or reflect the experience, emotions, or challenges of someone who has lost a loved one to suicide. While not comprehensive, we hope this small selection of books compiled by AFSP’s Loss and Healing Council will provide some comfort to those who have experienced this unique type of loss.
We understand that some stories may be difficult to read, depending on where you are on your journey. Please practice self-care.
Titles marked with an asterisk (*) are highly recommended readings from the Loss and Healing Council.
Creative Activities
Authors: Susan Auerbach, Jessica Kingsley
This intimate memoir tells the story of a mother’s journey of grief in the wake of her son’s suicide. In the words of Dr. Jack Jordan, an international authority on suicide loss, the book is “helpfully organized around themes and issues that suicide loss survivors will likely encounter.”
Warning: Includes images
Faith-Based
The Gift of Second: Healing from the Impact of Suicide
Author: Brandy Lidbeck
The Gift of Second, written by a therapist and suicide loss survivor, offers hope and advice to guide readers through the desperate time following a suicide loss. This book explores the nature of grief and trauma, encouraging loss survivors to let go of their guilt and shame, and sets readers on a path toward healing.
For Children and Teens
Children, Teens, and Suicide Loss (Spanish)*
Author: American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
Provides information for adults in supporting children and teens about suicide loss, how to find support, and begin the healing journey.
For Parents, Children and Teens
Conversations of Courage: a caregiver-guided activity journal for the child of suicide loss
Author: Erika Barber, MAT, CCLS
This 81-page interactive workbook encourages and facilitates healthy and truthful conversations between an adult caregiver and a child, meaning-making, and emotional expression following the loss of a loved one to suicide.
To order Conversations of Courage, email [email protected].
General
After Suicide Loss: Coping with Your Grief *
Authors: Jack Jordan, Ph.D., and Bob Baugher, Ph.D
This handbook is organized chronologically to follow the days, weeks, and months after a suicide loss. It includes information about psychiatric conditions, when to seek professional help, and practical strategies for coping and healing.
The Gift of Second: Healing from the Impact of Suicide
Author: Brandy Lidbeck
The Gift of Second, written by a therapist and suicide loss survivor, offers hope and advice to guide readers through the desperate time following a suicide loss. This book explores the nature of grief and trauma, encouraging loss survivors to let go of their guilt and shame, and sets readers on a path toward healing.
Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide*
Author: Kay Redfield Jamison
This classic book, written by an acclaimed poet, memoirist and professor of psychiatry with her own lived experience of depression and suicide attempts, weaves together a historical and scientific exploration of suicide with personal essays and perspective.
Surviving a Suicide Loss: Resource and Healing Guide (Spanish)*
Author: American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
Provides information about coping with loss, the survivor loss community, and resources to help with the healing journey.
Author: Thomas Joiner
This book, by psychologist Dr. Thomas Joiner, offers insight, guidance, and essential information to clinicians, scientists, and health practitioners, as well as to anyone whose life has been affected by suicide.
Handbook
The Gift of Second: Healing from the Impact of Suicide
Author: Brandy Lidbeck
The Gift of Second, written by a therapist and suicide loss survivor, offers hope and advice to guide readers through the desperate time following a suicide loss. This book explores the nature of grief and trauma, encouraging loss survivors to let go of their guilt and shame, and sets readers on a path toward healing.
Homicide/Suicide
A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy
Author: Sue Klebold
Written by the mother of Dylan Klebold, one of the shooters in the Columbine High School tragedy of 1999, this book chronicles a mother’s journey as she tries to come to terms with the incomprehensible. Klebold shares her experience, as well as the insights and understanding she has gained in the hope of helping other families recognize when a child is in distress.
The Perversion of Virtue: Understanding Murder-Suicide
Author: Thomas Joiner, Chris Kayser
Drawing from extensive research as well as real examples from the media, this book examines, deconstructs, and finally rebuilds our understanding of murder-suicide in such a way that brings tragic reason to what may seem an unfathomable act of violence.
Jewish Culture
Authors: Susan Auerbach, Jessica Kingsley
This intimate memoir tells the story of a mother’s journey of grief in the wake of her son’s suicide. In the words of Dr. Jack Jordan, an international authority on suicide loss, the book is “helpfully organized around themes and issues that suicide loss survivors will likely encounter.”
Warning: Includes images
Loss of Child
Author: Lynn Keane
Give Sorrow Words is a lyrical, empathic exploration of a family’s tragedy that illuminates the urgent need to end the stigma often associated with depression. The book offers hope that we may survive even when the worst has happened. Lynn Keane’s memoir enlightens and presents readers with an honest portrait of a family in grief.
I Keep Trying to Catch His Eye: A Memoir of Loss, Grief, and Love
Author: Ivan Maisel
I Keep Trying to Catch His Eye explores with grace, depth, and refinement the tragically transformative reality of losing a child. But it also tells the deeply human and deeply empathetic story of a father’s relationship with his son, of its complications, and of Max and Ivan’s struggle—as is the case for so many parents and their children—to connect.
Authors: Susan Auerbach, Jessica Kingsley
This intimate memoir tells the story of a mother’s journey of grief in the wake of her son’s suicide. In the words of Dr. Jack Jordan, an international authority on suicide loss, the book is “helpfully organized around themes and issues that suicide loss survivors will likely encounter.”
Warning: Includes images
Loss of Father
Suicide Survivors’ Club: A Family’s Journey through the Death of Their Loved One
Authors: Rebecca Anderson, Laurie Phillips
A five-book series that depicts the aftermath of a husband/father’s suicide from the perspective of his wife and children (ages 19, 7, and 5). The brief books “Becky,” “Pattie,” “Aidan,” and “Will” explore the feelings of suicide loss survivors of different ages and the healing power of art. The fifth book, “Parenting the Suicide Survivors’ Club,” is a short memoir by Rebecca, the mother, reflecting the challenges of holding a family together as the sole remaining parent.
Loss of Friend
Author: Sloane Crosley
This memoir by essayist and humorist Sloane Crosley explores multiple kinds of loss following the suicide death of her close friend and mentor. Tinged by dark humor, Crosley looks for answers in philosophy and art, as well as drawing knowingly imperfect parallels between the loss of her friend and material possessions stolen in a break-in, as she attempts (imperfectly) to find some sort of closure.
Loss of Husband
Author: Carla Fine
With No Time to Say Goodbye, the author brings suicide loss from the darkness into light, speaking frankly about the overwhelming feelings of confusion, guilt, shame, anger, and loneliness that are shared by many survivors.
Loss of Son
My Son . . . My Son . . .: A Guide to Healing After Death, Loss, or Suicide*
Author: Iris Bolton, Curtis Mitchelle
Iris Bolton's personal story of her son's suicide is a story of both a devastating tragedy and an exquisite triumph--and the agonizing, relentless, conflicted process connecting these two oppositional pulls.
My Unexpected Journey: Reflections After Losing My Son to Suicide
Author: Erin Blechman
A memoir that captures a mother’s raw grief, personal growth, and moments of hope after the suicide of her son. It offers heartfelt reflections, lessons learned, and an honest look at the lifelong impact of loss.
Loss of Spouse
Suicide Survivors’ Club: A Family’s Journey through the Death of Their Loved One
Authors: Rebecca Anderson, Laurie Phillips
A five-book series that depicts the aftermath of a husband/father’s suicide from the perspective of his wife and children (ages 19, 7, and 5). The brief books “Becky,” “Pattie,” “Aidan,” and “Will” explore the feelings of suicide loss survivors of different ages and the healing power of art. The fifth book, “Parenting the Suicide Survivors’ Club,” is a short memoir by Rebecca, the mother, reflecting the challenges of holding a family together as the sole remaining parent.
Memoir
Author: Sloane Crosley
This memoir by essayist and humorist Sloane Crosley explores multiple kinds of loss following the suicide death of her close friend and mentor. Tinged by dark humor, Crosley looks for answers in philosophy and art, as well as drawing knowingly imperfect parallels between the loss of her friend and material possessions stolen in a break-in, as she attempts (imperfectly) to find some sort of closure.
I Keep Trying to Catch His Eye: A Memoir of Loss, Grief, and Love
Author: Ivan Maisel
I Keep Trying to Catch His Eye explores with grace, depth, and refinement the tragically transformative reality of losing a child. But it also tells the deeply human and deeply empathetic story of a father’s relationship with his son, of its complications, and of Max and Ivan’s struggle—as is the case for so many parents and their children—to connect.
My Unexpected Journey: Reflections After Losing My Son to Suicide
Author: Erin Blechman
A memoir that captures a mother’s raw grief, personal growth, and moments of hope after the suicide of her son. It offers heartfelt reflections, lessons learned, and an honest look at the lifelong impact of loss.
Men and Grief
I Keep Trying to Catch His Eye: A Memoir of Loss, Grief, and Love
Author: Ivan Maisel
I Keep Trying to Catch His Eye explores with grace, depth, and refinement the tragically transformative reality of losing a child. But it also tells the deeply human and deeply empathetic story of a father’s relationship with his son, of its complications, and of Max and Ivan’s struggle—as is the case for so many parents and their children—to connect.
Letters to Mitch: The Healing Power of Grief, Love & Truth
Author: Marshall Dunn
A memoir comprised of raw, heartfelt letters, this account of the author’s grief and spiritual journey in the wake of the suicide death of his elder brother encourages readers to embrace change and honor the life with which they have been gifted. The blunt, unvarnished nature of some of the writing may be upsetting to people who have lost someone to suicide more recently.
Newly Bereaved
Authors: Susan Auerbach, Jessica Kingsley
This intimate memoir tells the story of a mother’s journey of grief in the wake of her son’s suicide. In the words of Dr. Jack Jordan, an international authority on suicide loss, the book is “helpfully organized around themes and issues that suicide loss survivors will likely encounter.”
Warning: Includes images
Sibling Loss
Letters to Mitch: The Healing Power of Grief, Love & Truth
Author: Marshall Dunn
A memoir comprised of raw, heartfelt letters, this account of the author’s grief and spiritual journey in the wake of the suicide death of his elder brother encourages readers to embrace change and honor the life with which they have been gifted. The blunt, unvarnished nature of some of the writing may be upsetting to people who have lost someone to suicide more recently.
Still With Us: Voices of Sibling Suicide Loss Survivors
Editor: Lena M Q Heilmann
The essays in Still With Us are arranged chronologically to move the reader from the first years of grieving to decades of healing. The authors commemorate the love that they continue to have for their siblings by telling us stories of grief, support, and strength.
Tools
After Suicide Loss: Coping with Your Grief *
Authors: Jack Jordan, Ph.D., and Bob Baugher, Ph.D
This handbook is organized chronologically to follow the days, weeks, and months after a suicide loss. It includes information about psychiatric conditions, when to seek professional help, and practical strategies for coping and healing.
Surviving a Suicide Loss: Resource and Healing Guide (Spanish)*
Author: American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
Provides information about coping with loss, the survivor loss community, and resources to help with the healing journey.
Uses Humor
Author: Sloane Crosley
This memoir by essayist and humorist Sloane Crosley explores multiple kinds of loss following the suicide death of her close friend and mentor. Tinged by dark humor, Crosley looks for answers in philosophy and art, as well as drawing knowingly imperfect parallels between the loss of her friend and material possessions stolen in a break-in, as she attempts (imperfectly) to find some sort of closure.
Connect with others who have lost a loved one to suicide:
Healing Conversations: Personal Support for Survivors of Suicide Loss: Healing Conversations is a one-time visit (phone, virtual, in-person) that connects those who have lost someone to suicide with trained volunteers who are also survivors of suicide loss.
AFSP offers a series of short videos of survivors who have navigated grief in their own way.
For more support, visit I've lost someone | AFSP.