Suicide Club
Page 28
Sometimes Lea drove, sometimes Anja. The car was a good one, obedient and regular, with a purring engine that sometimes had to be coaxed but for the most part was reliable. It even had a sun roof, a small square of plastic that was permanently open because the cover had broken. The patch of sunlight traveled from the back to the front of the car as the day went by, and as they drove farther and farther north. The plesiosaur that Kaito had given Lea sat on the dashboard, looking out toward the water.
When Anja was driving, Lea liked to push the passenger seat all the way down and back so she could kick her legs out and look up at the sky. There were times when it was dynamic and full of drama, usually the nights and mornings, when the sun did its work of waking the world and putting it back to sleep. But during the day, when they were driving, the opening framed a small patch of blue not unlike the skylight in her old office. Here, as then, she watched as the serene white clouds drifted past.
It came in a rush, suddenly one day, the strange, buoyant feeling. Lea had been lying down, watching the sky speed by. She forgot where she was until she sat up again, and all around them was rolling green and crashing ocean and lighted sky.
Kaito would have loved it, she thought, looking around at the reckless shifting beauty all around them. Suddenly she felt that he was there with her.
Lea wound down the window, and the wind rushed in, devouring the silence in the car, sending their hair flying across their faces. When Anja started laughing, Lea did too.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
RACHEL HENG’s fiction has received a Pushcart Prize Special Mention, Prairie Schooner’s Jane Geske Award, and has been featured by the Huffington Post, Grazia, and the Independent. She has been the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center, the National Arts Council of Singapore, and the Michener Center for Writers. Rachel graduated from Columbia University with a BA in comparative literature and society. She now lives in Austin, Texas, where she is an MFA candidate at the Michener Center for Writers and assistant editor for the O. Henry Prize Stories. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
About the Author
Copyright
SUICIDE CLUB. Copyright © 2018 by Qingpei Rachel Heng. All rights reserved. For information, address Henry Holt and Co., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.henryholt.com
Cover by Karen Horton
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Heng, Rachel, author.
Title: Suicide club: a novel / Rachel Heng.
Description: First edition. | New York: Henry Holt and Company, [2018]
Identifiers: LCCN 2017051333 | ISBN 9781250185341 (hardcover: alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Immortality—Fiction. | Suicide—Fiction. | Future, The—Fiction. | GSAFD: Dystopian fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3608.E548 S85 2018 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017051333
e-ISBN 9781250185358
First US Edition: July 2018
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.