The 39 Deaths of Adam Strand

December 17, 2012
In this introspective novel from adult author Galloway (As Simple as Snow), a teenager’s longing for death is thwarted by his inability to die. Adam Strand is a suicidal 17-year-old who returns from the dead after every attempt to take his own life, whether from jumping from a bridge, drowning, taking poison, or hanging. His friends are tolerant, his family frustrated, his neighbors annoyed, and his therapist useless. Over a summer, Adam contemplates his role in the world, confronts his lack of motivation, hangs out with his friends, and tries to connect to others. It’s a bleak, provocative, and almost nihilistic story in which very little actually happens. The narrative has a tendency to backtrack, meander, or come to a halt—there’s an inertia to the novel that mirrors Adam’s disinterest in existence, though he gains an appreciation of life in a resolution that’s neat but not overly rosy. Readers may see something of themselves in Adam’s confusion and dark impulses, in which case his message is clear: “I am moving forward, inch by inch some days.” Ages 14–up. Agent: David Halpern, the Robbins Office.

January 1, 2013
Suicide from the eyes of a survivor. Seventeen-year-old Adam Strand tells readers up front that he doesn't want to tell his story; he really wishes he didn't have a story to tell. He's killed himself 39 times using various methods: jumping, bullets, poisoning and more. For reasons that are never explained, however, he always manages to wake up a few hours after each attempt as if it never happened. His parents and friends are nonplussed by his behavior--his father even includes "dead time" in his grounded hours for every minute past his curfew that he spends dead. Alex Award winner Galloway's first novel for teens is all character sketch and atmosphere. He pens beautifully rendered landscapes--a haunting, abandoned bridge over a river, a ravaged statue of an angel in the town square. These melancholy descriptions reveal more of the story than Adam or his supporting characters. Adam himself is simultaneously provocative and off-putting as a narrator. His story is compelling, but he withholds. Herein lies the problem: Galloway leaves out the bits that teens would want to read about most: the suicide details, solid connections between Adam and his friends, a budding romance. All are either buried or glided over with a cool nonchalance that will be hard to follow for teens accustomed to titles like Thirteen Reasons Why. A moody, compelling read that never cuts to the quick. (Fiction. 14 & up)

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

March 1, 2013

Gr 9 Up-Teenager Adam Strand is bored, self-absorbed, and desperate to have some control over his own life; he has committed suicide 39 times. However, after each act he has awoken hours or days later, physically unscathed. The people in his bleak factory town in rural Iowa have come to view his failed suicides as more of a nuisance than a miracle. Adam's narrative includes several nonlinear flashbacks dating back to his early childhood, but the primary story takes place over the course of the summer before his senior year. The chapter titles, which include the chronological number of the suicide contained within, help to clarify the time line. The lack of action may leave some readers restless; the novel is made up largely of static situations, such as Adam and his friends getting drunk and watching a dead cow decompose or Adam complaining about his parents' many idiosyncrasies. Galloway's exquisite writing, however, more than makes up for the slow pace. Using raw imagery, he perfectly crafts Adam's philosophical, meandering account of his life and deaths. He relates Adam's plight to that of Sisyphus, and also includes references to the works of Kafka, Twain, and Poe, among others. Secondary characters are well developed and easily distinguishable. Fans of gritty realistic fiction such as Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak (Farrar, 1999) and Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why (Penguin, 2007) will appreciate Adam's thoughtful, authentic adolescent voice, and the honesty and boldness with which Galloway treats the issue of suicide.-Liz Overberg, Darlington Middle School, Rome, GA

Copyright 2013 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 1, 2013
Grades 10-1 *Starred Review* At 16, Adam Strand has committed suicide 39 times and each time has returned to life whole and unscathed, no matter how violent his death. He is, Adam thinks, genetically hardwired to kill himself, and his condition is exacerbated by his rejection of a world where, he thinks, we're all horrible. Better to find oblivion in death, for the dead are perfect. Profoundly pessimistic and solipsistic, Adam begins to look beyond himself for the first time when a young girl whom he is fond of becomes perhaps ill, and he is called on to help her. Will his acts of charity be enough to temper his addiction to death? Galloway, the author of the Alex Awardwinning As Simple as Snow (2005), offers a riveting second novel that explores the issue of suicide with a philosophical, never sensational, approach, inviting considerations of existentialism and nihilism. Adam is tragically out of tune with what he regards as a meaningless world in which fishing and drinking are the only ways to spend the summer he turns 17. Is his disaffection universal or is it an anomaly confined to his own troubled self? As it addresses these questions, Galloway's book requires careful reading, but the effort is well worth it.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)