Loss Adjustment


 “I have had nothing bad happen to me except my own doing. I have let this cowardice envelop me, and I can’t shake it off. I will commit the worst thing you can ever do to someone who loves you: killing yourself. The scary thing is, I’m okay with that.” —Victoria McLeod, Singapore, March 30, 2014


Loss Adjustment is a mother’s recount of her 17-year-old daughter’s suicide.

In the wake of Victoria McLeod’s passing, she left behind a remarkable journal in her laptop of the final four months of her life. Linda Collins, her mother, has woven these into her memoir, which is at once cohesive, yet fragmented, reflecting a survivor's state of mind after devastating loss.

Loss Adjustment involves the endless whys, the journey of Linda Collins and her husband in honouring Victoria, and the impossible question of what drove their daughter to this irretrievable act. A stunningly intimate portrait of loss and grief, Loss Adjustment is a breaking of silence—a book whose face society cannot turn away from.


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Loss Adjustment

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$21.00 SGD

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Reviews

"This book is raw and compelling yet gentle and sensitive. I applaud Linda for achieving this, a feat that’s both unimaginable and admirable – honouring Victoria, her late daughter, by helping others who are also struggling. I’m certain this read has helped shed light on the taboo topic of suicide, allowing more people to be aware of the little signs and potentially save those who are in desperate need of saving." —Grace Foo, ArtsEquator

"Throughout her memoir, Collins navigates the different stages of grief. Adjustment is a tricky concept, and a trickier condition; the more one tries to normalize life, the tougher it is to hold on to fragments of the past. Collins’s conversational writing style and unfiltered tone provide the reader with an intimate perspective into a survivor’s state of mind after suffering loss. The writing is eloquent with both illuminating metaphors and timely statistics." —Pooja Shah, Singapore Unbound


"Collins is a generous narrator; she doesn’t shy away from the hardest moments nor does she wring them out for dramatic effect. Her carefully crafted sentences convey pain and invite us to look right at it, but they also provide moments of respite, gratitude, even humour. Yes, she seemed to be saying to me, this is hard, it’s terrible, but we can face it together." —Holly Walker, Stuff

AUTHORS

Linda Collins