My Father Didn't Kill Himself

Russell Nohelty

YA Mystery. This book deals with death, loss, and grief. There are difficult concepts to deal with and uncomfortable.

Author Bio:
Russell Nohelty is a writer, publisher, and consultant. He is the publisher of Wannabe Press and its main author. Russell likes to write genre fiction with deep character studies. He’s sadistic with his characters, putting them in the worst situations and watching them claw their way back up, just to kick them back into the abyss. Russell started his career writing comics, and now writes novels and children’s books as well.

Social Media Links:
@russellnohelty (twitter/Instagram)

www.facebook.com/russellnohelty,

Blurb:
How would you cope is somebody you love committed suicide?

Delilah's father is the greatest man she has ever known. When he commits suicide her world is shattered. She can't eat. She can't sleep. Her bubbly personality becomes ascorbic. All she wants is to be left alone.

When his insurance policy refuses to pay out, Delilah sets out to prove what she's known all along: that his suicide was in fact a murder.

A story of getting over grief and learning those you idolize aren't perfect, told in blog posts through Delilah and her best friend.

On the surface My Father Didn’t Kill Himself is a mystery book, but right below the surface is a story of how people get over grief. And not just how Delilah gets over her grief of losing the person she idolizes most in the world. Also about how a wife gets over the grief of her husband, a husband that was supposed to provide for her, but instead left her alone and destitute.

Mixed with that is the loss felt by Alex, Delilah's best friend, in losing her best friend to the anguish of grief, watching her slip away and pull back from the world, feeling helpless.

Buy Link:

http://www.amazon.com/My-Father-Didnt-Kill-Himself-ebook/dp/B01CKUZR0A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1458775611&sr=8-1&keywords=my+father+didn%27t+kill+himself+russell+nohelty

Excerpt:

DROWNING

Posted by Delilah Clark × December 15 at 9:31 pm.

Here is what The Suicide Handbook says about drowning.

Drowning in cold water is supposed to be like going to sleep. For me, it was a nightmare.

Shivering, freezing, I sat for a minute until my body

Adjusted to the cold. Then I sunk down under the water. The cold washed over me, but my lungs were on fire. Before I could pass out my natural instincts kicked in. I couldn't fight them. I kicked and screamed

until half the water was gone. I gasped for air. It was frightful.

I performed my experiment much like J. I laid down in the tub until my body adjusted to the temperature. Once I was acclimated, I sunk below the water. I breathed out until there were no bubbles. And I waited. It didn’t take long for the fire in my lungs to start. Soon, it was unbearable. My body thrashed around for a moment before I shot out of the water and gasped for precious air.

I wholeheartedly endorse every word J said.

On top of that I realized something.

If I died in this tub, my bowels would empty, and I would be sitting in feces-filled water until somebody found me. That is not a dignified way to die—my bowel excretion muddying the water and coating me in a fine mist of poop. They’d be scrubbing for days to get me ready for the casket.

No thank you.

CEMETERY

Posted by Delilah Clark × December 16 at 7:22 pm.

Before every session with Dr. Bennett, Susie drives me to the cemetery and tries to coerce me into visiting my father’s grave.

I’d never been to his grave before; not since the funeral. It didn’t seem important to me.

It’s not like he's in there anyway. Maybe his body, but not him. If he’s anywhere, he's by my side as I try to fulfill his last wishes, not hanging out in a cemetery.

But Susie always insists on driving to the cemetery anyway. The cemetery is a weird place full of weird people. There’s this tall undertaker who seems a little too into the dead people’s families. He’s like overeager for them to buy something. His smile creeps me out.

There’s a grave digger who has to be high on something because he moves slower than molasses. Sometimes I catch the funeral director yelling at him, as if that’s going to motivate somebody that digs graves for a living to pick up the pace. Shocker, it never worked.

They’re not weird in a bad way though. Some of them I could like if I didn’t hate everybody on principle. There’s this guy who is always reading comic books. He introduced himself to me one day as “Roscoe. Roscoe Fay.” Like he’s James Bond or something. He just sits under this tall oak tree overlooking the cemetery and silently reads comics. I would watch him read sometimes, letting my eye catch a cool image every once and a while.

I would usually just sit there, looking out at the cemetery, until Susie gave up and drove us away. But today was different. Today, I felt a twinge in my stomach, a pang, not quite a stress baby, but maybe a stress zygote, or an unfertilized egg.

I needed to see his grave. I needed to talk to him.

Susie was ready to fight, but before she could open her big mouth I pushed out of the door and walked over to his grave.

It was weird.

For all my research on death, I had no idea how to act in a cemetery. I saw a few people crying over graves and placing flowers on them as they rehashed their day.

That isn’t me. I’m cried out.

His gravestone was simple and to the point.

Tim Clark. Devoted husband and father.

I read it over and over again. Have you ever noticed that any word you say over and over again sounds super weird? Just try saying neck two hundred times and tell me that’s not a silly word by the end?

By the eight millionth silent loop, my dad’s name sounded like an alien language. Maybe Zorgblopple, which I just made up.

“Hey dad,” I finally said. “How are you doing? Probably not so bad, right? I mean worms might be eating your insides, but at least you can’t feel how cold it is, right?”

I paused, waiting for a response from him. I felt like an idiot.

“It’s been snowing here a lot. Remember when Mom went out of town for the weekend and it rained? You always said that God was crying because he missed her. I thought that was silly, but I always think about that when it rains or snows now.”

I liked it. I liked it so much I skipped therapy and sat there most of the day. I really can’t tell you how much better than therapy it is.

Author Interview Questions:

1. I write because…

I’m a neurotic mess and writing is the only time I feel sane. I basically bottle up all my neuroses until they are too much to bear and put them on the page. It’s a compulsion for me, but I love it.

2. If I were your favorite cookie, what would I be?

Macadamia nut, for sure.

3. Plotter or pantster?

I’m a pantster that REALLY wants to be a plotter. What usually happens is I spend a year on an outline for a book and it goes out the window page 5. I’m working on it though, because I think in order to do longer form books and series you have to be a plotter.

4. What is your favorite type of character to write about and why?

I like psychologically flawed characters, specifically females though I write about 50% male and 50% female main characters. I like females because all men end up sounding like me eventually. With females I can put myself in somebody else’s shoes and it becomes easier for me to get a compelling character.

I like the psychologically flawed because my main two themes are perception and religion. I want the reader to wonder whether what the character is seeing is truth or they are lying to themselves. I think about that a lot. Whether we are living in the Matrix or this is real life, and how my real life differs from your reality. I think those psychological flaws make the characters unique and relatable.

I always want to make sure they are riddled with flaws, but somehow act in spite of them. Too many characters are perfect these days. I want people to understand just the struggle to do something mundane is amazing.

5. Hamburgers or sushi?

Oh man. Well I shouldn’t eat gluten or seafood, so you’ve caught me in a bind. I’m going to say hamburgers though. They are my go to food when I’ve had a bad day.

6. Name three things on your desk.

Well I have about 100 desk toys from Wall-E to Hello Kitty to Legos. I’m going to say that’s one. Then I have the microphone that I use to record my podcast The Business of Art. Finally, I have three monitors which sounds like a lot but really I could use about three more.

7. What books have influenced your writing style?

Clockwork Orange, Siddhartha, Y: The Last Man, Cat’s Cradle, and Fight Club. That is a far ranging list I know, but all of them deal with man’s struggle, either with religion of himself. They deal with perception, juxtaposing truth with lies, and still wind up being very entertaining books despite all the heavy stuff. That’s my goal. I want to write books that mean something but are also entertaining.

8. Tell us a little about your book.

My Father Didn’t Kill Himself is about a girl whose father commits suicide and she sets out to prove it’s a murder. Or at least that’s the plot.

Most people hear that and think it’s going to be a whodunit. While there is some of that, really it’s about a girl and her family who deal with the grief of losing somebody they love.

It’s told all in blog posts between the main character and her best friend, so you really get a sense of the struggle the girls are going through. It’s a deep dive into death, with a murder mystery thrown in for good measure.

9. What advice do you have for new and aspiring authors?

You suck now. If that’s hard to hear I promise it’s going to get worse before it gets better. You are not a good writer, in the professional sense. If you can’t get published it’s not the editor’s problem, it’s your problem.

The good news is that anybody can get better with practice. Anybody. And everybody was once in your shoes. Everybody.

All that separates you from the masters is practice. Now, how much practice you need is different for everybody. Whether you endure the struggle is another matter. I needed more practice than most to get where I am today, but I got there.

You can get there too, but you have to work at it.

10. What is next on your writerly horizon?

I have another book coming out in June called Spaceship Broken: Needs Repairs. It’s about a kid who finds a homeless alien and helps rebuild her spaceship. Or at least that’s the plot.

Really it’s about my very complicated relationship with my grandfather as a boy. It’s about abuse, psychosis, and how we get over trauma. It’s a fiction book though, so none of this actually happened to me. This was the hardest book I ever wrote.

Top 5 favorite (pick one) desserts, movies, things to eat, ice cream flavors, books.

1. Steak

2. Hamburgers

3. Rice Pudding

4. Vanilla Ice Cream

5. Tacos

Or at least that’s what it is at this moment. Maybe next week it will change.