Adventure in Suicide

*Adventure in Suicide* incorporates in one volume all the issues found in other first-person novels of the what-is-the-meaning-of-life school (chapter one), it provides a response both to these other novels and to the issues they raise about "outsiderism" and the "duality" of human nature (chapter two), and it offers one logical outcome of this resolution (chapter three). Bellow's *Dangling Man*, Golding's *Free Fall*, Camus's *Stranger*, Sartre's *Nausea*—what are these books about? With what human predicament are they grappling? To answer these questions, Vivelo's novel restates the problem in basic form and presents the resolution in simple, blunt terms by a character who has intimately experienced, and worked through, the issues. The unnamed protagonist explores various avenues—physical adventure, sexual indulgence, intellectual and artistic pursuits—in his quest for significance and heightened consciousness. He comes finally to a startling conclusion. Steel yourself for the impact.