Imagine Me Gone

Haslett has crafted a haunting, beautifully-rendered novel about how generational mental illness in a family can ravage a devastating and far-reaching path of destruction through the lives of the afflicted and the healthy. All are hyper-vigilant, wary and self-contained, each scrambling to cope, with varying degrees of success, while shoring up those who are in the downward spiral. The book could easily be a memoir, simply because the characters are that finely-nuanced and expertly depicted. It is fiction at its best, as each character is so starkly vivid and fully wrought. Each musing and frailty rings true. Anxiety and depression are so well-articulated that the reader can literally feel the cloaking, foreboding despair. Eldest sibling, Michael, is trapped in a repetitive loop of inertia and frantic longing, perpetually unable to envision or create a promising future. He clings to an obsession with music, academia and ill-fated relationships, but cannot parlay his considerable intelligence into steady employment or sustainability. Therapy and medications provide a brief respite, but with diminishing results. All of the family members are grappling, struggling and trudging forward as crisis and loss reverberate among this fragile cluster of relatives. His mother and siblings attempt to help Michael, but they too, are wrestling with the pall cast by the patriarch’s legacy. There are bright spots, thankfully, and some wry humor, but the tone is predominantly bleak. This is a serious book that dares to take the reader down the rabbit hole to reveal the realities of depression and anxiety. One would be hard-pressed to find a more accurate description of this particular stubborn darkness and the nearly-constant unease and agitation. The audience for this book may be clinicians who wish to immerse themselves in a realistic depiction of their clent’s painful personal experiences or merely those who appreciate a well-written story. It will most profoundly resonate with anyone familiar with mental illness in all its guises. Many will strongly identify with Michael as he stumbles, and ache when he fails. This is a good book. Frustrating, pensive and deeply worthwhile, but dark. Upon finishing it, one feels somewhat compelled to shake it loose from the mind and go in search of sunlight.

Caution: Spoilers. Other reviewers here have written that this book only concerns mental illness, which is really only a part of it. As a person of a certain age, who has lived in major cities that are now largely unaffordable for the average person, I lately find myself pining for the kind of benignly eccentric characters that I remember who used to live in the cities way back when. These were colorful, “specialists of their own passions” who could follow their obscure interests without penalty, or condemnation, sometimes working at marginal jobs for years, if not their entire lives. I would find them in bookstores, and in record shops, and sometimes if I was lucky enough, working right beside me. The central character of “Imagine Me Gone”, Michael, strikes me as this same sort of gentle, big-hearted, eccentric that is difficult to find these days, in a world where there is so much pressure to bend to social conformity and personal ambition. Michael possesses neither of these traits, and remains a beautiful, complicated, Romantic, tortured figure in the story, and one whose difference has been medicalized, medicated, and obliterated out of existence. Like the old, obscure music he is obsessed with, he is a man completely out of sync with the rhythms of the harsh, modern world, a world that increasingly cares little for those among us who are still able to follow the beat of their own drum and heart. This is not to say that this character is not without his problems, but in an earlier time, I doubt that he would have been medicated to the extent that he was in this story, which begs the question of what came first: the lingering affects of his own family tragedy, or the devastating side effects of the dubious medications that made his mental health all that much worse. In the book, this answer is not entirely clear to the reader. What is clear, however, is the power of music and especially memory, to bring us back in time as a comparative device to the present. If you decide to read this beautifully written story, I recommend going the extra yard by pausing to listen to some of the artists that Michael brilliantly discusses, as you may learn something extremely powerful and possibly deeply unsettling buried in his intelligent, sublime musings. As for me, I am grateful to the writer for having focused on this particular type of character who is disappearing all too quickly.

Overall, the book was decent, though I have to say I think some continuity was lost in the decision to tell the story from multiple, alternating perspectives. At times, it was a little bit challenging to uproot oneself out of one strongly conceived, well-written perspective, at one particular time in the family's experience, into another. This isn't necessarily a negative per se, however, as the decision did allow the reader to experience the lasting effects of depression, mental illness and suicide from everyone's point of view, which seems to have been the author's intention. Some of the characters were rather unlikeable at times for me - particularly the mother and Celia - and I think further exploration of their rationale for some of their behaviors could have helped me feel a little more empahetic towards them. Also, I had a little bit of an issue with what I saw as some inconsistent descriptions of Boston. I went to BC, and though yes, there were parties and athletics, I wouldn't describe it as a "dumb jock party school" which is what it came off as according to Michael. I suppose, however, this could be taken with a bit of a grain of salt, given that Michael is a somewhat unreliable narrator. In addition, it sounds like the mother sells her house and gets an apartment in Chestnut Hill near the Res...where is this spacious, affordable 2 BR apartment with French doors over there??? Admittedly, I was a poor college student when I lived over that way, but I don't seem to remember an abundance of those, even for the young professionals who had already graduated. In the end, Michael is a brilliantly conceived, interesting character, who drives to book and your desire to read it, however, some lack of continuity and less attention paid to the inner psychology of the supporting cast made this just an OK read.

Love every page of this book !

This was a wonderful read. Cannot praise the author’s literary style and his wonderful characterisations enough. The story flowed beautifully from chapter to chapter and kept up the momentum throughout. I couldn’t put it down. A story about depression and its effect on the rest of the family is not for everyone but truly this a gem of a book. I am going to seek out his other work now.

I enjoyed every word, even the sadness. And I understood much more about the suffering of people with depression, anxiety or psychosis. And the suffering of their families.It will help me - hopefully - to better understand the people with mental disturbances in my family.

This book is an emotional read that can become heavy at times. The story and the theme are ones that many have to consider daily. Worth the time to read.

Depression, mental illness, death and bereavement form the central core to Imagine Me Gone. These are difficult and challenging themes to get across in a novel and I think Adam Haslett has managed to do this well.For me this has been a stop start book. In part one, a very lengthy background chapter is given on Micheal, and I wish this had been shorter because it felt like I was wading through a kind of mental treacle. Perhaps this is what the author intended - to have readers gain some real insight into what it’s like for an individual suffering from depression, to put ourselves in their shoes.There is another chapter in part two on Michael describing a family therapy group session and this was one of the funniest chapters in the whole book. Given the subject matter this could have turned into a very bleak book but fortunately it didn’t, and I think you need to be in the right frame of mind to read it - avoid if feeling low or depressed! Well written and would recommend.