As far as challenging subject matter goes, Facing Down the Furies takes top spot among nonfiction.

I love how author Edith approached the topic of suicide, through the prism of Greek tragedies and her personal experiences. In the end, this book is a celebration of life, celebration of life after death.

My biggest take away?
For thousands of years, the human condition has largely remained the same. We are driven by largely the same emotions that go hand in hand with close relationships within academia, profession, romantic and family ties.

If reader does not feel triggered by suicide and mental health topics, I would most certainly recommend this title.

Memoirs are not a genre I gravitate towards. I wanted to read this book because of my interest in Greek tragedy and because I've experienced suicidal ideation. I was curious about using ancient literature as a way to explore and understand people's decision to kill themselves and the impact it has on the people left behind.

It was a very interesting read, but I found it a bit disconnected. It was a dry read. Even the sections about her family and her experiences were very dry. If it was more emotive I might have felt more connected.

Equally, it is the author’s right to keep that to themselves especially regarding such a sensitive topic. It isn't a criticism or a demand for vulnerability. I personally found it difficult to overcome that distance.

Thank you to #NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy of this book by Edith Hall. I'm afraid to say that it took me so long to read it, but the subject matter was so heavy that I had to put it down and come back to it to read in small amounts. I found that Hall looking to the ancient past to try and make sense of the events in her life was interesting. The Greek philosophers and playwrights had some interesting thoughts on the matter of suicide, something which Hall pulled together into this part memoir, part academic study. I was expecting this to be more academic than it was, and the snippets of her past and her family compared to the ancient Greeks really brought home how similar we all are.

I think this was overall an interesting concept. Personally, I had difficulty with the academic tone as I expected it to be a bit more sentimental. I was also challenged by what felt to be a stilted balance between critical analysis and personal anecdotes.

Part memoir, part academic paper in Facing Down the Furies, Edith Hall delves into the historical association, generational impact and actions associated with the actions and thoughts of suicide; a concept that has gripped humankind for hundreds of years that (for some reason) divides people on whether it is a sin, something to cure, or to be ignored.

Written matter-of-factly with echoes of personal experience, for an academic piece Facing Down the Furies still pulls at some heartstrings for those who've survived suicide or have known the impact of suicide in their lives. Hall writes with care and emotion as she links people, emotions, places, and eras to examine how the concept of suicide is seen through time and places. Facing Down the Furies reflects on both Greek and Modern tragedies that show the intricacy behind a powerful yet terribly tragic concept that is still mistreated by some.

Although a very interesting book, I will give a warning that because Facing Down the Furies deals with suicide, make sure you're in the right mindset before you pick up Hall's book.

Thank you, NetGalley and Yale University Press for sending me an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Dnf'ed at page 86

Maybe I am just not in the right mood, as I think this book could be really helpfull to some. The point it really wants to make, that suicide also harm the people left behind, is a good one but it gets bogged down in all the information it wants to give. The chapters to me are also too long which doesn't help in making the reading easier.

I will give this a three star as I do think there is something here, it's just not something for me

Part academic study and part memoir, Hall’s work expresses the actions, generational impact and historical association we have with the concept (and fulfilled) actions and thoughts of suicide. This book weaves themes, people, place, and philosophical perspectives to examine the ways (and stigma) associated with the act or thoughts of it in an eloquent, informed, as well as emotive way. An insightful reflection on the Greek tragedy, and modern tragedy surrounding the topic.

Edith Hall offers a poignant glimpse into the deeply personal and philosophical exploration of suicide and its impact on individuals and families. Hall's connection to the themes of suicide, loss, and resilience, through her own family history and her scholarly work on Greek tragedy, adds a profound layer to her analysis.

By drawing parallels between the characters from Greek tragedy and her own relatives, Hall bridges the gap between ancient myths and modern experiences, showing the enduring relevance of these stories. Her reflection on how these ancient plays helped her navigate her own grief and suicidal urges underscores the transformative power of literature in processing and understanding complex emotions.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me review this book. I’ve never really thought about suicide and Greek tragedies but it shows that suicides along with suicidal thoughts were just as prevalent then as they are today.

"Against Suicide" ought to be the subtitle, in the form of an Athenian orator's prosecution speech.

The scholarly side of the work discusses instances of suicide, along with trauma and depression, as portrayed in Ancient Greek drama. It is not scholarship, in it being the author's interpretations and feelings about the works, but it is informed by scholarship and done with an expert's familiarity. I appreciated (in part because I feared) that most of the takes are 'deep cuts' and not reiterations on the same well-known plays. To the extent that there is a thesis, it is that the Ancient Greeks had a complex and subtle take on mental illness, full of suggestions that they spent a lot of time grappling with the psychological damage of war for instance.

I loved it. Hall's passion spills over every page. The asterisk would be that I think that a reader might get the impression that the author is providing a definitive or accepted interpretation, where I think that is not the case. Or at least I have heard plenty of well-supported versions of what things in these works are meant to represent. 'Yes, Logan,' I argue with myself, 'that's theater.' But maybe we need to create a distinction between the dramaturgical and the scholarly. It is a great read though.

(About the only thing that I thought was missing was Neoptolemus. If you want to talk family trauma, whooo. But that gets better expressed in the Roman corpus, so it gets a pass.)

The non-scholarly side of the work is a half-history, half-memoir on the author's own family and the members who have commit suicide, including the author's own suicidal ideation and mental health crises. At points, this feels the more polemical side of the work. Akin to her work on Aristotle, the book is the secular argument against suicide, which centers around the trauma in others that it produces and the harm it does to their lives, and importantly the lives of those that they then touch and the trauma they induce in others.

These sections feel like handling hot coals. Vulnerability is the source of all good art, but the discussion here is so intimate that I feel uncomfortable in reading it, much less writing something about what I think about reading it. I want to believe that I connect to this, that it has been a positive experience for me, but I just don't know. Mental health in general suffers in darkness, but I almost feel like this brings too much light. Or at least let's say that the amazing degree of artful disclosure and feeling that Hall makes into words feels like anything I could do is shameful for not having that.

Even though Hall makes a visit to the places and the records of her ancestors, at points my credibility meter started to go off. There are times when the author makes reasonable suppositions and guesses about things in her family's past. While these guesses are reasonable, they often end up serving as the buttress for others around the theme of intergenerational trauma. And while she does hedge her language, it itched my mind at points.

But whatever the weaknesses floating around, the power and the warmth of the book is worth it. When the author starts relating her own direct experiences, more certain in her situating and its relationship to the familial relationships in her life, is when the book feels the most true to its cause.

Thanks the author and the publisher for making the ARC available to me.

Combining a memoir with philosophy, history and literature, the author takes a look at the heavy legacy of suicide that her family left her. Through the stories of her great-grandfather and her grandmother, both dead by their own hand, she explores the similarities between self-murder and the Greek classics. Through her mother and herself, she studies the burden such deaths leave on the survivors, including the genetic component of people who die in such a way and the daily battle their families face trying not to give in to it. She looks at the way suicide has been seen through the ages and in different cultures and tries to learn from the classics ways to help people with suicidal ideations. It is a different way to explore the issue and I believe it can help some readers. Unfortunately, I found it a little too dry and distant. Memoirs are not my genre, and I was mostly interested in the historical part, which had too many original texts and poems for me. Suicide has touched my life, twice, and I was looking for either more emotional, or more useful content. Readers of classics and fans of memoirs will enjoy it, I was just the wrong reader for this.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, #NetGalley/#Yale University Press.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Yale University Press for an advance copy of this book on suicide, and how we as humans have been grappling with this issue in art and philosophy for quite a long time.

I remember reading in a book, I'm not sure the author, or even the subject matter, though I am sure it was nonfiction a line that stayed with me, not because of how it was used, but how it explained a few things that were going on in my life. I remember in the book a terrible crime, maybe a parent killing children, has be committed and the author says, this person succumbed to the devil's beautiful music. The devil's beautiful music is how I think of suicide and the solution it provides. I have known a few people who couldn't ignore that devil's beautiful music, one who lived, but the others lost now for many years. As has the author of this book Edith Hall, whose family, family relationships, and even her own thoughts have heard the devil's beautiful music, the effects of which still affect her life in many ways. Also, as a scholar, Hall can look to the past for ideas, discussions, and even consolation which Hall does in her book Facing Down the Furies: Suicide, the Ancient Greeks, and Me part memoir, part study, part search for understanding and a look at grief of what suicide does to both victims and survivors, even generations later.

The book begins with a discussion of the author's life, when England offered programs that helped students who might not have ever gotten the chance to learn things in higher education. Hall found Latin uninteresting, but Ancient Greek was a vast wonderland to Hall. One which she studied, passed and has made her life's work. Certain works though dealt with the topic of suicide, not just in plays, but in works about Socrates, and other writings. Hall was famiilar with the subject of depression and suicide. Her Mother's grandfather, mother and cousin all had committed suicide, and as Hall grew older Hall dealt with the same feelings. The classics were a way of looking at suicide. The coldness of Socrates on his last days to his young family, the words used to describe characters whose death effected so many, along with other writings.

I'm not sure what I expected when I started reading this, but I did not expect a book that touched my brain, my heart and my soul so much. This is suck a well-written book, dealing with the classics, family, and the pain that people have when their own brains turn against them. Or when they feel society has. The book has a perfect balance between memoir, and using the classics to deal with real world events, along with current research on why people commit suicide, and what happens to those left behind. Expect a run or emotions also, from little victories, to great losses and what could have beens.

A book that I would recommend,but I can see where it would be hard for a lot of people. I found the writing quite helpful, and interesting, and could see a lot of people getting a sense of consolation from it. In the academic sense it is also an different look at the classics, and one that people could take a lot from.

Weaves together academia along with the personal and mythological, delving into a study of suicide. Well-written and researched, I recommend Facing Down the Furies.

Excellent. Absolutely necessary. Required reading.

A book about suicide through an academic lens examining the Greek tragedies, and heavily led and influenced by the author's own life and experience.

Wonderfully written and sensitivity handled with a complete lack of stigma and a spacious non-judgemental tone.

Hall, through a compelling and enlightening perspective, details the compassionate ancient Greek methodology and manner of assisting those who are suicidal. Western medicine has much to learn, and very far to go.

Truly, I have been waiting for this book since I was fifteen and my father took his own life. Like the preceding years of dysfunction, abuse and neglect, it was not spoken of. This book would have been a guiding light in the abysmal pit of darkness.

I highly, empathetically recommend this to anyone and everyone who has ever had suicide impact their lives, including anyone who has ever had suicidal ideation.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Publishers for making available a free digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. I look forward to purchasing a copy of this excellent book to add to my personal home library, as it has touched me deeply and personally.

Engaging and insightful. A recommended purchase for collections where mythology and mental health titles are popular.