The Suicide Collectors

AUTHOR: David Oppegaard

PUBLISHED: 2008

GENRE: Fiction

I’m not sure what inspired me to pick up this novel.  Maybe I was swept away by the spirit of the Halloween season. Perhaps I had seen it so many times on the library’s new books shelf that I felt bad for it.  The cover quote advertised it as “a wonderfully creepy debut”.  I would classify it kind of a bore.

I had high hopes when I saw the opening quote for the tale.  Most authors go with Shakespeare, or Poe, or if they’re feeling particularly epic, the Bible.  Oppengaard went instead with Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, an interesting and unusual choice.*  But it soon became clear that the quote had been forced into service to give the story something it lacked: a sense of urgency and nervousness, which, I think we all would agree, is kind of essential for this type of novel. 

When the book opens, its protagonist, Nelson, is returning from a nice morning of fishing, but the home he returns to is far too quiet.  His wife Jordan has committed suicide, overdosing on pills while he fished.  Nelson is distraught, but not terribly surprised; not because Jordan has been depressed but because suicide has taken the lives of most of the world’s population.  Known only as the Despair, it came upon mankind suddenly, driving the happy and sad alike into sudden acts of self-harm; after a pleasant breakfast, a businessman might head into the office, or he might jump off the local water tower.  There is no accounting for who chooses to live and who chooses to die.  Those who have managed to resist the urge live scattered and in fear of the Collectors, seemingly inhuman figures who come for the bodies of those who have ended their own lives.  The impulsive decision to keep the Collectors from his wife’s body sends Nelson on a cross-country trip to the heart of the Despair and the source of it all.

Despite its lofty themes, the story lacks any real pressure or tension, largely due to the laid-back, it-is-how-it-is attitudes of its two main characters, Nelson and his neighbor, Pops.  Dead wife?  Bummer, man.  Horde of crazy cultists?  Eh, we’ll figure it out.  These personality traits make sense; in order to survive the overwhelming death and collapse of civilization around them, they must adopt a, shall we say, thicker skin.  But that survival instinct makes for a less-than-thrilling ride.  The decision to place the story in what seems like the near future – cars have voice controlled windows, but nothing else seems different? – just confuses the reader further.  The Collectors show up infrequently, with no explanation given as to how they know the dead bodies are there, or why they want them, or any other question you might have.**

By the time Nelson finally gets to his destination, the reader has grown accustomed to a plodding pace.  Then BAM!, a major plot point comes at you like a wayward water balloon.  Having found a cell of resistance, Nelson is asked – told? he doesn’t really get a choice, they just kind of assume he’ll do it – to go on a suicide mission to destroy the Collectors’ HQ.  He agrees instantly, and no thought is given to why this man who has so far completely resisted the urge to hurt himself, who has shown nothing but the strongest sense of survival, is so willing to just end it.  One minute he’s walking in the door, the next he’s on a barge taking the all those collected bodies to the source of, well, the Source.*** 

 From there it dissolves into a lot of light and a lot of humming and a lot of shady and half-formed explanations for the Despair and the Collectors and what it all means.  It’s not very satisfying, but fortunately, by that point, you don’t really care much about what it all means.  And that’s no way to thrill anyone.

LENGTH: 304 pages

MAINSTREAM OR NOT: No.

SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: Nah.  It’s an interesting concept but lacks any depth and ends without any sense of conclusion or even explanation.

*The quote is, “A swimmer in distress cries, “I shall drown!  No one will save me!” A suicide puts it another way: “I will drown! No one shall save me!” In relaxed speech, however, the words shall and will are seldom used precisely; our ear guides us or fails to guide us, as the case may be, and we are quite likely to drown when we want to survive and survive when we want to drown.”

**About all we known about the Collectors for most of the book is that they really like helicopters, making them the Delta Force of otherworldly body-snatchers. 

***This would not be same as the Source from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, unfortunately.  This book could have used a little Giles in it.