The 39 Deaths of Adam Strand

By Gregory Galloway

Book Review by THAYER TYMON

JHop Times Literary Critic

We always hear about miracles, about when someone dies and is brought back to life by science and a well-trained team of doctors.

            In a small town, there was a drawbridge. One day people were driving across the drawbridge and a 10-year-old boy committed suicide by jumping off that very bridge.

            It was a horrible tragedy, and there was no way around it. He died. There was no bringing him back. But then he woke up to find his family and doctors looking at him. The boy who had just died by jumping off a drawbridge had come back from the dead.

            The boy’s name: Adam Strand.

            Adam isn’t miserable. He isn’t depressed. He’s not even confused. He’s just…bored.

            Adam was ten the first time he committed suicide. He woke up in a hospital, but do not be mistaken. He successfully killed himself. There wasn’t any chance in the world that he would wake up. But he did.

            Even after waking up from that day, he wasn’t finished. He didn’t regret jumping. He wanted to do it again.

            So Adam killed himself again. He actually has killed himself 39 times.

            The urge to end it all starts with a feeling in his chest: the urge just to end it all, the time when he wants to die. It’s bearable at first. Then the feeling grows. It empowers him. It consumes him. That’s when he does it. That’s when he takes his own life.

Afterward, there is nothing, and to Adam, it is beautiful.

            Death gives him peace.

            Then he comes back to life.

            And he gets bored again.

            He is always bored.

            What he does is unnatural, it’s unusual, and it’s just plain wrong. But it’s not his fault. He just wants to die and not come back. Is that so much to ask?

            Adam’s story starts at his first suicide, then goes on through his life. He is poked and prodded by every doctor in the Western Hemisphere. He has people around him who hurt instead of help him. His life isn’t horrible or miserable. It’s just plain and drab and not fulfilling. But dying is fulfilling.

            Is it worth dying if you just keep waking up?

            Gregory Galloway gives a reason to what makes life worth living: when you want it to be more than just a day- in, day-out routine, it can happen. Even with all the pain and suffering in the world, we all can find peace in something or someone.

The 39 Deaths of Adam Strand tries to explain why people just want to end it, and show that when given peace, the world gets better. Sometimes we just all need a reminder of why everything is wrong, and be reminded how to make it right.