In Spring 2019, Justin Taylor published a memoir in Harper's titled “What it Means to Be Alive,” about his father’s almost-suicide. In it, Taylor receives a concerned telephone call from his sister and tells the reader that the lyrics, “When I was summoned to the phone / I knew in my bones that you had died alone” from Silver Jews' song “Death of an Heir of Sorrows” comes to mind, he is so sure that his father’s death is a forgone conclusion. It’s not.
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