{ "item_title" : "A Better Ending", "item_author" : [" James Whitfield Thomson "], "item_description" : "Haunting and heartfelt...meticulously recounted with powerful suspense and hard-earned wisdom. --Robert Kolker, author of Hidden Valley Road A propulsive and deeply human (The Minnesota Star Tribune) memoir about a brother's decades-long investigation into the circumstances surrounding his sister's tragic death--and his own journey to forgiveness and closure. On a summer evening in 1974, Jim Thomson arrived home from a baseball game to the news that his younger sister, Eileen, had taken her own life. To Jim, his parents, and his brother, Keith, the loss was unexpected and devastating. Only twenty-seven years old, Eileen had been living in California with her high school sweetheart, Vic, a cop, surrounded by a circle of close friends and working at a job she loved. It seemed unfathomable that she would kill herself, but as the family gathered in Pittsburgh to say goodbye, more details emerged that seemed to explain the tragedy: Eileen had confided in her parents that she had been suffering from depression, and her storybook marriage had been plagued by bitter fights, infidelity, and guilt. When Jim eventually sat down with his brother-in-law to talk about the final hours of Eileen's life, Vic looked him in the eye and explained that he had stormed out of the room during a volatile argument. Moments later, a gunshot went off. Sensing no lies or evasion, Jim believed him. He recounted the story to the rest of the family, and they got on with their lives as best they could. Twenty-seven years later, with all of his family passed away, Eileen's death began to nag at Jim. Now a writer, he wanted to fill in the blanks of her story and answer the questions that were plaguing him. What had the final months of Eileen's life been like? Why had she not told him about her troubles? How had the infidelity in her marriage brought her and Vic to that fateful day, and who else had been a part of it? What other demons had she been battling? Determined to uncover the truth, Jim hired a private investigator to help him. Together, they tracked down Eileen's old friends and clandestinely obtained copies of police reports, which revealed that Vic and Eileen's relationship--and the sheriff's investigation that followed her death--was much darker and more complicated than they had imagined. Torn by doubt, Jim began a two-decade journey that took him from the streets of Pittsburgh to the hills of San Bernardino, leading him into a tangled web of secrecy, deception, and shifting stories that forced him to reconsider everything he thought he knew about Vic, Eileen, and himself--and to confront the chilling question of whether his sister had really taken her own life. Told with the precision and pace of a whodunit and the searing emotion of a family saga, A Better Ending is an unforgettable tale about the love between siblings, the murkiness of truth and memory, and the path to acceptance.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers2.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/66/806/286/1668062860_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "28.99", "online_price" : "28.99", "our_price" : "28.99", "club_price" : "28.99", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "28.99" } }

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“Heads is anger, tails is guilt.” A friend of James Whitfield Thomson used that phrase to explain how it felt to survive a loved one’s death by suicide: It’s as though you’re always carrying a coin with you, and no matter which side comes up, the survivor is left with difficult emotions.

Years later, Thomson experienced that grief firsthand after his sister Eileen’s death. During a fight with her husband, Eileen shot herself in the heart. Thomson was shocked. It was news to Thomson that his sister and her husband, Vic, had separated months earlier. His parents kept that revelation to themselves, knowing they couldn’t fix their daughter’s relationship. Thomson confronted his brother-in-law to learn what happened the day of Eileen’s death, accepted his explanation and moved forward as best he could. Vic went his separate way.

But decades later, when Thomson began writing a novel based on his sister’s death, he was confronted by a possibility: What if Eileen hadn’t chosen to die? What if she’d been murdered?

In A Better Ending: A Brother’s Twenty-Year Quest to Uncover the Truth About His Sister’s Death, Thomson recounts the questions and research that drove his investigation. Thomson turned to a private eye, and together they interviewed numerous people who were close to Eileen. But their recollections don’t always neatly align, and Thomson is often left asking how reliable memory—including his own—can be years later: “Selective memory. We all have it to some degree. Maybe it’s the only thing that lets us look in the mirror every morning.”

Thomson’s research and curiosity propel A Better Ending, creating a true crime narrative thread that begs for resolution. He weaves the mysteries surrounding his sister’s death with his own self-examination, taking a clear-eyed approach to his shortcomings, both after his sister’s death and in the present day. He writes not only of his sister’s marriage, but also of his and their brother’s marital problems, and Thomson examines the ways violence touched each sibling. 

Reexamining the circumstances that led to her death won’t bring Eileen back, Thomson knows. But as he pursues a better ending, he revisits the sister he knew and reckons with his own guilt, anger and memory.