AustLit

'To think too long about someone’s suicide feels like trespass. To imagine the moment’s tableau with any kind of colour (caps returned to their bottles, tightened) or to dwell on the arrangements made ($30,000 a year left for the Jack Russell) feels like taking a torchlight to the final darkness, the last silence of the mind. Kate killed herself when I was thirteen. Now, thirteen years later, I find I am beginning to question the details. I can’t help but unpick her resolve. Was a life without her guru too unbearable? Did he advise her to do it? I almost have to coax these questions out of hiding. Asking them feels defiant, rebellious – they ring like insults. My natural state is an old loyalty. Respect as reflex.'  (Introduction)