The Eclipse: A Memoir of Suicide

The Eclipse: A Memoir of Suicide (ISBN 0-9751075-1-8) is Antonella Gambotto-Burke's first memoir and fourth book. The narrative details her response to the death of her ex-fiancé, the notorious American-born British GQ editor Michael VerMeulen, and to her younger brother Gianluca's 2001 suicide, and led to Gambotto-Burke being featured on the cover of The Weekend Australian review section.

The Eclipse: A Memoir of Suicide

The original 2004 Australian cover
Author	Antonella Gambotto-Burke
Cover artist	Hornet + Slug
Country	Australia
Language	English
Genre	Memoir
Publisher	Broken Ankle Books
Publication date	2004
Media type	Print (Paperback and, in translation, Hardback). Ebook released in 2013.
Pages	205 pp (first edition, paperback)
ISBN	0-9751075-1-8 (first edition, paperback)
Dewey Decimal	828/.9203 22
LC Class	PR9619.4.G36 Z465 2003
Preceded by	The Pure Weight of the Heart
Followed by	MOUTH

In 2023, poet Kimmo Leijala wrote of the Finnish edition, "At times, The Eclipse: A Memoir of Suicide reads like a strict, even self-critical monologue involving reflection and existential questions ... [Gambotto-Burke]'s use of language reads like poetry at times, drawing the reader in. At other times, her prose makes my heart pound ... this is a book everyone should read. As the back cover says, it's 'the most important book ever written about loss'."

The Eclipse has been published in four languages.

Biographical

Gambotto-Burke has said that she could not save her brother from himself, and wrote that the only way she could deal with the onslaught of grief was by regulating her life.

"For those who dismiss the 3000-year-old practice [of yoga] on spiritual grounds or because of its associations with new age guff: yoga is now part of all pro-athlete training ..." Gambotto-Burke wrote. "As I found after my brother’s death, consistent yoga practice also creates dramatic increases in the level of serotonin, a key player in the mediation of happiness, optimism and satisfaction."

Quotes

“Time is ungovernable, but grief presents us with a choice: what do we do with the savage energies of bereavement? What do we do with the memory - or in the memory - of the beloved? Some commemorate love with statuary, but behavior, too, is a memorial, as is a well-lived life. In death, there is always the promise of hope. The key is opening, rather than numbing, ourselves to pain. Above all, we must show our children how to celebrate existence in all its beauty, and how to get up after life has knocked us down, time and again. Half-dead, we stand. And together, we salute love. Because in the end, that's all that matters. How hard we loved, and how hard we tried.”

“Suicide rates have not slumped under the onslaught of antidepressants, mood-stabilizers, anxiolytic and anti-psychotic drugs; the jump in suicide rates suggests that the opposite is true. In some cases, suicide risk skyrockets once treatment begins (the patient may feel not only penalized for a justifiable reaction, but permanently stigmatized as malfunctioning). Studies show that self-loathing sharply decreases only in the course of cognitive-behavioral treatment.”

“The light in that room was a glow; I seem to remember the color green, or perhaps flowers. A pale green sheet covered his inert body but not his head, which lay (eyes closed, mouth set in a tense and terrible grimace) unmoving. Gianluca. Barely able to see, barely able to stand - my knees kept buckling – and breathing so quietly I thought that I, too, might die; that out of shock, I would just drift away, the shell of my body cracking open. No longer anchored by my brother’s love, I would be reabsorbed by sky. Gianluca. If there was never another sound in the world, I would understand – yes, that would be appropriate, it would be fitting. This was the antithesis of music, the antithesis of noise. My brother’s death seemed to demand silence of all the world. Gianluca.”

Reception

"When they were both five, a blond boy with 'rueful eyes' asked Gambotto to marry him; at 16, he blew his brains out," The Sunday Times critic wrote. "Later, her lover, Michael VerMeulen, the editor of GQ magazine, overdosed on cocaine. Then in 2001, her brother gassed himself in a car. He left an apologetic note to his unknown discoverers, reassuring them that the gas was not explosive and asking the police to return the rented empty tank to the shop. He thought of everything - yet his family and friends were left only with a terrible perplexity. [Gambotto-Burke]'s account is intense and moving, and she vividly captures her brother's troubled character."

In The South China Morning Post, Annabel Walker decided that the book was "[h]onest, moving and reflective" and that "at its heart is intense grief." Gambotto-Burke "presents the hard facts, showing that during the past 45 years suicide rates worldwide have increased by 60 per cent ... [a] comfortingly honest account of the hellishness and black humour such events can bring ... Throughout the book, Gambotto asks: Does any man have the right to dispose of his own life? She supplies conflicting theories of philosophers and thinkers from Plato to the present ... She finds that the answer is no."

British philosophy professor Nicholas Humphrey wrote, "I read The Eclipse through at one sitting, gripped as by Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. It's an astonishing, deep and beautiful book."

The American Association of Suicidology magazine summarised the book thus: "The Eclipse is recommended for anyone searching for the meaning of loss in his/her life.'"

The Eclipse: A Memoir of Suicide is also recommended by the Good Grief Trust.

Psychiatrist Béla Buda, on the American Psychological Association website, described The Eclipse as "brilliant".

External links

'A Memoir of Suicide', by Béla Buda, Crisis: The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention, Vol 25(2), 2004, p95