The depths of despair
Making sense of a brother's life and death
“To the River,” the new book from Toronto writer Don Gillmor, begins with a harrowing scene. Narrated in the second person, as if addressed to the person taking the actions, the scene follows “you” as, “heavy and dull from sleeping pills,” they make their way to an icy river’s edge, taking off their hat and setting it on the ground, staring at the water for several minutes until, finally, “you take one more step and the river carries you away.”
The scene is Gillmor’s imagining of the last moments of his younger brother David’s life.
In December of 2005, David Gillmor, a talented musician, disappeared just outside Whitehorse; his truck and his favourite cowboy hat were found on the bank of the Yukon River. While his fate was unclear, the Gillmor family’s deepest fears were realized six months later, when David’s body was discovered following the spring thaw.
“To the River” is Gillmor’s attempt to not only make sense of his brother’s death, but also to understand his life, to try to fill in the gaps in their shared experiences and to come to terms with how someone once so close could choose to end his own life.
This is not new ground for Gillmor who, in the wake of his brother’s death, wrote extensively about suicide in his capacity as a journalist, his work earning him both a National Newspaper Award and a National Magazine Award.
Building off this work, the book frequently shifts, seamlessly, from the brothers’ stories to a wider perspective. As he explores the cultural, sociological and psychological questions surrounding suicide, Gillmor circles ever closer to an answer to the central question of those left behind: why? On the way, he draws back the curtain on a subject too little discussed, revealing statistics and studies (for example: Middle-aged boomerscurrently have the highest rate of suicide, and it is common for people suffering from chronic suicidal impulses to end their lives when things seem to be going well, rather than at points of struggle) which only serve to create more questions.
At its heart, though, “To the River” is a family story, focused on a brother’s love and loss. It is a keen-edged, frank book, beautiful and unflinching, painful but important.
Robert J. Wiersema is the author, most recently, of Seven Crow Stories.