I Keep Trying to Catch His Eye

Starred review from August 2, 2021
Maisel (The Maisel Report), a former senior writer for ESPN, reflects on the tragedy of losing his 21-year-old son, Max, to suicide in this beautiful and heart-wrenching work. One morning in 2015, Maisel received a call from a sheriff’s office in Upstate New York, near his son’s college, reporting that Max’s car had been found near the shore of Lake Ontario, with no sign of its owner. Maisel’s worst fears were realized when it became clear that Max had deliberately walked out on the lake’s frozen surface until the ice broke beneath him. While Maisel knew that Max had had his share of struggles—especially with connecting with other people—neither he nor his wife, Meg, were aware of the extent of their son’s pain. Flashbacks to Max’s childhood make him a vivid personality, and photos of him throughout render the author’s grief devastatingly visceral. Even in the face of despair, the Maisels had no choice but to go on living without Max. Rather than succumbing to the “sugary, greeting-card emotion” that makes stories of grief, like his, palatable, Maisel writes honestly about learning how to have an “appreciation for what comes, with the understanding that I am guaranteed nothing.” The result yields a deeply affecting testament to the fragility of life, and the human capacity for resilience. Agent: Jan Miller, Dupree Miller & Assoc.

September 1, 2021
A chronicle of the heartbreaking aftermath of a son's suicide. In February 2015, Maisel, a sportswriter who spent a 20-year career covering college football for ESPN, learned that his son Max, a college junior, was missing, his car found abandoned near a lake in upstate New York. Soon it became clear that Max, who had long suffered from emotional problems, had killed himself. Maisel's raw, moving memoir is both a tribute to Max and an anatomical dissection of a father's grief. Unable, and unwilling, to "move on," Maisel learned to coexist with grief by understanding it as an expression of love. "Seeing grief as love helped me handle its all-consuming nature," Maisel writes. "Seeing grief as love made it seem less alien, less painful." Yet he was beset by guilt over not being able to rescue his son from the depression and hopelessness that led to his death. Although a psychologist assured him "there's zero, zero, zero, zero chance" that someone intent on suicide can be stopped, the author could not help but feel complicit. His denial about the seriousness of his son's problems, he reflects, was "partly rooted in my genuine faith that he would ultimately succeed, and mostly rooted in my fear of admitting to myself how desperate his mental condition might be." Max exhibited problems even as a young child. He had few friends ("my memories of Max are of him alone," Maisel writes), and he had physical difficulties: "He never slept well. Ever. He had trouble gripping a pencil, which led to handwriting that started out hard to decipher and never improved. He had the most ear infections." Sadly, he saw the world as "half empty." As the author recounts the years since Max's death, he acknowledges ways that he, his family, his connection to his work, and his view of the world have all changed--though "the permanence of the loss" remains. An intimate chronicle of abiding love.

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September 1, 2021
This poignant, understated memoir by former ESPN sportswriter Maisel (The Maisel Report) reflects on his experiences after the loss of his son Max, then a college student, to suicide. Max, who "didn't possess the tools to connect with people" and was increasingly depressed, walked into Lake Ontario on a winter day in 2015. His body wasn't found until months later. Maisel, who can only cope with his grief by writing about his feelings and experiences of the loss every day, depicts both his inner landscape, which is dominated by a struggle between guilt that he didn't do more to help his son and understanding that there was only so much he could do, and the outer sequence of events that follows the death: family gatherings, a memorial service, the placing of his son's ashes. Maisel touches on the reactions of his wife and two daughters, but, wishing to respect their privacy, keeps the focus on his own experience. Those who have lost a child will find a kindred spirit here.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

November 1, 2021

Maisel, a former ESPN writer who lost his son Max to suicide, wrote this book as a way to express and cope with grief. The result is a tender account of a son's life by his loving father. Maisel tries to understand Max's death by reconsidering his life, and wishes he'd been able to help Max earlier. He delves into the nuances of how his wife and daughters and Max's friends and extended family processed and experienced their grief in different ways. Maisel heartbreakingly describes Max's complex and puzzling character and his roles as son, brother, and friend, in such a way that readers will come to enjoy his company. VERDICT A painful, cathartic memoir for those who have known someone who died by suicide or contemplated it. The grief, and sometimes guilt, of a father makes this memoir a difficult read, but Maisel's depiction of coping gives it a palpable warmth.--Amanda Ray, Iowa City P.L.

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