Another tragic case involving medical incompetence and cover-up

It was only eight lines into O Brother that I realised I was in the hands of a good writer. John Niven’s landline phone has rung. His partner hands it to him. ‘I take the phone from her as she watches me in the intense, quizzical way we monitor people who are about to receive Very Bad News.’ I can’t recall a writer noticing that before (I presume a few have), but we have noticed it ourselves. And the narrative masterstroke is that now the reader is looking at the page in an intense, quizzical way, for we want to know what the Very Bad News is.

The VBN is that Niven’s younger brother Gary is in a coma, following a suicide attempt. He had been going off the rails from a young age; now, near-destitute, all his utilities cut off and with no way that he can see to pay his debts, he attempts suicide – an act of self-harm with a blade.