May Not Appear Exactly as Shown

Matt Hartman is a freelance editor and cataloguer, running Hartman Cataloguing, Editing and Indexing Services.

As a travel guide to Toronto (Yonge Street subway line, College Street,
Eglinton, Queen Street, Nathan Phillips Square, and Old City Hall); as,
perhaps, a catalogue of vogue-ish brand names (Starbucks, The Gap, Aldo,
XOXO, Club Monaco); certainly as a plethora of dropped names (Nicolas
Cage, Susan Sarandon, Sarah Polley, Leonard Cohen), Leenders’s first
novel works quite well. The Ontario rehabilitation therapist has mapped
out the city and the Generation X culture, and put both of them into the
service of his idea that his own suicide is inevitable. “In my fairly
informed opinion,” says Ryan, the protagonist, “if the idea of
suicide hasn’t crossed your mind by the time you’re sixteen or
seventeen I’d say you’re either in denial or you’re lying.”
Ryan’s sister kills herself (he is an observer and a cousin captures
the act on video). His response is to open both a digital (website) and
an actual (the Suicide Loft) sanctuary for those with self-destructive
inclinations. As he moves through the city, interacting with friends and
family, Ryan’s thoughts turn increasingly toward the method he will
use for his own demise.

Leenders’s prose is punchy and hip; chapter headings are all lower
case and cryptic (“daphne, modified,” “nicole, theories,”
“brasa, pre-food order”). The novel’s problem results from the
lack of a driving focus as much as from a weakness of characterization.
Many of Leenders’s yuppies suffer from ennui (ostensibly the reason
for the thoughts of suicide). They seem to have it all—money, friends,
appealing work situations—but, to paraphrase, things are not always as
they appear. Still, this is a good first novel and Leenders is a writer
to watch.