TRIGGER WARNING: Suicide, depression, mental health.
One’s own attempted suicide isn’t a topic typically tackled with sardonic wit and astounding intellect.
Yet Anna Mehler Paperny’s mesmerizing new memoir Hello I Want To Die Please Fix Me captures the morbidity of extreme depression with refreshing humour and surprising warmth.
The book, Paperny’s first, begins with the author’s own hazy account of her first real suicide attempt. In the process of her One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest-lite recovery period, an idea begins to percolate in her half-cogent mind—she’s got to write this all down.
Equal parts in-depth psychoanalysis, masterful investigative journalism and self-fulfilling memoir, Paperny’s book makes it clear from the jump that this is not your average trauma autobiography.
Paperny is an award-winning journalist whose curriculum vitae includes writing for media giants such as The Globe and Mail, Reuters and Maclean’s, among others. She’s established herself as a highly skilled question-asker and answer-finder.
In her book, Paperny summons every one of her powers to answer the one question that has tormented her: “Why did I do it?”
And though it might be true that this question guides Paperny’s journey to patch together this book, distilling the contents of Hello I Want To Die Please Fix Me into a quest for a singular truth would be ignorant of the delicious complexities vibrating through its pages.
The book has its fair share of funny bits—it’s ironic, desperate title is proof enough.
But Paperny uses humour to soothe her readers through the hard-hitting, powerful story of a woman who seems to have it all together but is quietly going insane.
The book is littered with facts and statistics about the realities of those facing extreme depression, but the stats are so expertly woven into the book’s compelling narrative that the mental health crash course never reads as patronizing.
If a journalist’s job is to distill tough topics into plain prose, then clearly Paperny is an excellent one —never before have hard truths about suicide felt so easy to comprehend.
Paperny is a female journalist trying to write her way out of the labyrinthine annals of her own mind. In this, she places herself within a great lineage—this book evokes the wry, semi-autobiographical chaos of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, a novel that also follows an up-and-coming female journalist who finds herself in the jaws of depression.
And though she may emulate Plath’s iconic protagonist Esther Greenwood in important ways, it would be more accurate to align Paperny with those contributing to the burgeoning genre of mental health memoir, including the likes of Jan Wong (Out of the Blue) and Susannah Cahalan (Brain on Fire).
This book is a triumph. Darkly humorous and expertly crafted, Hello I Want To Die Please Fix Me is a singularly millennial descent into the mind of a voraciously curious woman who seeks to understand her desire for her own demise—and it’s absolutely a deep dive worth taking.
If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, contact:
Mental Health Crisis Line: 613-722-6914 (within Ottawa) and 1-866-996-0991 (outside Ottawa)
Distress Centre of Ottawa and Region 24-hour line: 613-238-3311
Youth Services Bureau 24/7 Crisis Line: 613-260-2360 or 1-877-377-7775 (toll free for eastern Ontario)
Feature image by KC Hoard.
