The Dark Eclipse: Reflections on Suicide and Absence is a book of personal essays in which author Andrew Barnes seeks to come to terms with the suicide of his older brother, Mike. Using source documentation-the police report, autopsy, suicide note, and death certificate-the essays explore Barnes' relationship with Mike and their status as gay brothers raised in a large conservative family in the Midwest. In addition, the narrative traces the brothers' difficult relationship with their father, a man who once studied to be a Cistercian monk before marrying and fathering eight children. Because...