Help! I'm Alive: A Novel

by Gurjinder Basran

Overview

A powerfully emotional story of four people touched by a teen’s death, award-winning author Gurjinder Basran’s Help! I’m Alive is a clear-eyed exploration of meaningful connection in the modern era

After video footage of Jay’s death is shared on social media, a suburban Vancouver community is left to try to make sense of what happened to Jay and whether his death was an accident or a suicide.

Help! I’m Alive explores the aftermath through the eyes of four people all suddenly confronted with who they have been and how they should be in the wake of such loss. Jay’s former best friend, Ash, wonders what happened to their friendship and questions the relationships he has now; Winona, Jay’s troubled girlfriend struggles with guilt and abandonment; Anik, Ash’s older brother, is on a search for the meaning of life but hasn’t left his basement apartment in months; and Pavan, Ash and Anik’s mother, finds Jay’s death lays bare all her personal and maternal anxieties.

Unflinching but life-affirming, Help! I’m Alive is a Gen Z and Gen X coming-to-terms story about loneliness and connection, love and suffering, and the moments that bring us together and drive us apart.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781770416307
Publisher:	ECW Press
Publication date:	05/10/2022
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.55(d)
Lexile:	HL860L (what's this?)

About the Author

Gurjinder Basran is the award-winning author of two previous works of fiction. Her debut novel, Everything Was Goodbye, won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and her work regularly appears on must-read lists. Basran studied at Simon Fraser Universities Writer’s Studio and lives with her family just outside of Vancouver, British Columbia.

Read an Excerpt

At school, the halls are crammed with backpacked bodies like always, but there’s this extra feeling, like the heaviness you get in your chest when you’re keeping a secret or telling a lie, only it’s not contained, it’s alive with a virus-like spread. The popular girls are crying in huddled masses, mascara runs down their cheeks as they work at mastering sentiment, sullen expressions, and the not-too-ugly cry — they don’t know how to do anything but pose and pretend. And the boys, they just nod and look away, never quite making eye contact. Head down, hands tucked in pockets, he avoids them all, weaving and maneuvering his way through the day as if he were a rat in a maze.

An announcement is made after first bell. “We are shocked and saddened by the sudden passing of Jacob McAlister. Our hearts and prayers are with his family and friends.” No mention of the details, only that there will be counselors on hand for the next few weeks. People who didn’t know him act sad. People who did know him are legit stunned. Teachers whisper out one side of their two faces, gossiping about Jay’s mom and how she must be feeling. Ash wants to tell them to stop talking about Jay like he’s an event, like some epic winter storm that they’ll recall when they’re old. And his mom? How she’s feeling is screwed, not in her usual too-many-night-shifts, cash-strapped, chain-smoking way, but in the life is never going to be good again way. Ash feels bad for her; Lisa tries hard, like most moms do. He can still hear her calling down the street as Jay skated away. “You come back here, Jacob McAlister,” his name caught in the whirring of the wheels, syllables eaten by asphalt.

No one saw this coming. He was a happy kid; he had a girlfriend. Sure, Winona was a bit weird but still he had someone. Jay wasn’t like the cutters who carve at their arms in the girls’ bathroom stalls or like the bullied kid who hung himself in the art room. That’s what everyone’s saying at least. Now that he’s gone, everyone wants to know him, to know why, to insert themselves into the story and make it mean something.

But there’s no making sense of it.

Jay jumped off the Lions Gate Bridge.

And even though Ash saw it, he doesn’t want to believe it. The sky was too blue that day.

Editorial Reviews

03/28/2022

Basran’s striking if uneven latest (after Someone You Love Is Gone) follows four characters dealing with the aftermath of a teenager’s death. Jay McAlister’s surviving friends and family are left to grapple with whether Jay’s fatal fall from Vancouver’s Lions Gate Bridge was intentional. A “suicide game” has been making the rounds online with Jay’s peers with a common symbol of a blue whale, of which Jay and Winona, his self-harming not-quite-girlfriend, received matching tattoos. Basran covers the 100 days leading up to Jay’s death with stories of Jay’s former friend Ash; Ash’s older brother, Anik; their mother, Pavan; and Winona. None seems to have known Jay very well, creating an unfortunate distance that largely keeps the reader from getting invested in their emotional arcs, though a subplot involving Anik undertaking a pilgrimage from Vancouver to a small island town on foot is more successful. On the road, Anik meets Rose, a trans woman with a knack for social media marketing. “#AniksWay” turns into a popular hashtag and gets the two featured on local news, which leads Ash and Winona to them. The story concludes with a dramatic and symbolic encounter, which brings the disparate story lines into startling cohesion. Despite its flaws, this makes for a satisfying drama. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Rather than exploiting suicide for character development, Basran opts to probe fractures in the oldest, closest relationships and the beautiful fragility of new ones. Each character is distinct, drawn with such detail that readers will find it easy to empathize with them. Help! I'm Alive is a masterful examination of what it means to be human, to hope and to connect.” — Shelf Awareness

“A satisfying drama.” — Publishers Weekly

“Basran sensitively examines four characters with their own sets of psychological struggles, all of whom gradually and to a believable degree begin to move past them and open up, offering a hint of hope to the reader.” — Booklist

“Gurjinder Basran brings a laser-focused intensity to the interactions and concerns of alienated teens, the cruelties and generosities of friendship, intimacy and family, the ‘small interventions’ that make life bearable. ‘When we’re the luckiest we don’t even know it’s happening,’ she writes. By the end of Help! I’m Alive, though, that is no longer true; having come through a terrible ordeal, these flawed but compelling characters have found the grace notes to guide them onward in their journey.” — Rachel Rose, author of The Octopus Has Three Hearts

“Help! I’m Alive doesn’t exploit the despair that can lead to suicide but instead asks its characters and readers to look at the ways they connect — or don’t — in modern society ... Basran’s insight, voice and deep character work make this an affecting read.” — Shelf Awareness

“Gurjinder Basran sensitively and authentically explores the challenges of death and of living on.” — Desi News

“The undoubted success of Help! originates with writing elementals. Basran’s artful management of them — distinctive characters (witty, loving, conflicted, capable-but-stymied) on expertly-paced quests (peculiar, quirky, lovingly rendered, intriguingly resolved) in a contemporary Canadian setting (whose issues, conflicts, frailties, strengths, and knotted complications are immediately recognizable) — is clear from start to finish. It’s fiction to enjoy as storytelling, sure, but as impressive, it’s an elegant story to consider as a bracing, deep, and useful meditation on the (pre-pandemic) here and now.” — The BC Review

“Basran’s bravery in looking directly on the most anxious, personal, and unanswerable questions that simmer under the surface of both community and individual pays off in a book that feels deeply truthful. Her elegant storytelling exposes the raw edge of grief and loss while uplifting the resilience of the human heart in even the most destabilizing moments.” — Open Book

From the Publisher