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"While new generations of readers are drawn to her prescient work, her passionate life and tragic death have much to tell us about what it means to write -- and to be human."
Why do I get the feeling that the very unconventional woman being spoken of, above, might bristle at the idea that choosing one's own manner and time of death, is "tragic"? It's horribly un-PC to suggest such a thing, of course, but suicide is NOT synonymous with "tragedy". In fact, it's not even necessarily synonymous with "sad". Especially annoying is when such language is applied, somewhat brainlessly if you ask me, by those who in other discussions argue most passionately in favor of individual's rights. "My body, my choice," eh?
in the late 60s and 70s when I was reading SF stories in magazines and paperback anthologies. I picked up a copy of this bio after reading about it in Salon, and it was a bit of a slow read, but worth it to anyone with a prior interest in her fiction, mostly for the facts about her life. I just finished re-reading all her stories last night, now plan to go back through the bio. Previously, I never regarded her suicide as a tragedy, because I agree with the sentiments expressed by “no name given;” however, after reading the bio, and learning much more about the circumstances, including her chronic, lifelong depression and the possibility that her husband did not want to die at that particular time, I do think it was tragedy. The Showtime series “Masters of Horror” recently aired an episode featuring her story “The Screwfly Solution” directed by Joe Dante, who did the best episode last year, “Homecoming.”
