In the Suburb of Possible Suicide

In the Suburb of Possible Suicide originally titled Suicide Club was a quarterfinalist in Screenwriters Magazine and was an honored recipient of the No Borders distinction at the IFFM at the Angelika Theater, 1996.

It is the story of a teenager, Joshua Victor, whose parents move him from the middle-class town of East Meadow to the rich village of Great Neck Estates in 1962 in the hopes of getting him to improve his young life and become a better student.

But Joshua goes from the sunshine of the middle class to the dark leafiness and trees of well-to-do Great Neck. He feels like an outcast, falling in with a bad crowd and becoming more self-destructive. He cuts himself with razors and breaks his hand against the wall.

He plays with self-destruction but never destroys himself. He is going through the confusion of adolescence. He is Hamlet. He is Holden Caulfield. He is suicidal but does not commit suicide.

The slogan of this coming of age story is that sometimes life undoes us. But if we pick up the pieces we can survive and flourish.

David Lawrence has published more than nine hundred poems in North American Review, Midwest Poetry Review, Chicago Tribune, California Quarterly, William and Mary Review, Confrontation, ACM, Folio, Laurel Review, Poet Lore, Mudfish, Hawai'i Review, People Magazine, New Laurel Review, Coe Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, New Delta Review, Minnesota Review, etc. He has published a thousand articles in historical periodicals, such as Daily Caller and American Thinker. His book The King of White Collar Boxing (Rain Mountain Press) was a finalist for the Bakeless Nonfiction Prize (Breadloaf).