“Through each page, you’ll experience…
controversial facts;
countless secrets;
multiple obsessions;
emotional pains;
undeniable truths…”

The Art

PaGidi writes in what he refers to as expressions. His primary purpose of writing is to express the feelings and emotions welled up inside; to reflect his truth.

For this reason, the art of his writing is undeniable. With few words stacked in lines, he ignites curiosity in his readers. Bit by bit, you’re drawn into it. You absorb these expressions. You find that this could just as easily be your story.

Dearest Suicide (Book 2) leaves a taste in your mind. It’s sad at one point, funny at another, hopeful, depressing, familiar, but what it is not is bland. It’s almost impossible to read through it all and not have a part that strikes and holds you transfixed for a while.

For me, it was the emails sent by his girlfriend while he was at the NYSC orientation camp. They felt like windows into their lives, into their relationship. I could not help but wonder if it ever crossed her mind, as she wrote those emails, that they would be out one day. Obviously not. They were born out of sheer affection. Yet, without intending to, she was telling her sad love story, so convincingly well that we end up buying it. And we fantasize about what could have been if he had simply checked his email.

The Science

I mentioned in my review of Dearest Suicide (Book 1), that it was one of the most detailed histories and accounts of suicide I had read in one piece. PaGidi goes on to build on this. It is evident that he has searched the corners of the earth for questions and answers, in a bid to confront suicide.

The spiral of one case into another, spanning across continents, is his way of reminding us that suicide has always been one of the leading causes of death in the world. The close look into the victims’ lives is his way of taking our eyes away from the numbers and showing us that these were people who had their lives ahead before suicide took them.

It spreads out to shed light on societal issues. You can hardly discuss suicide without looking at these underlying issues that adversely affect our mental health – issues like family/peer pressure, stigmatization, the cancel culture, social intolerance, and so on. These are the little ways we kill ourselves and push our neighbours over the cliff.

Reading this book, I could not help but be amazed at how something that started as a necessary spill of emotions, blossomed into this multifaceted piece of literature.

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