This sadly-all-too-familiar theme is tackled by Matthew Quick, author of The Silver Linings Playbook.
Meet Leonard Peacock, the 18-year-old Hamlet-quoting narrator. Peacock, who just happens to own a P-38 Nazi pistol brought back from the war by his grandfather, is contemplating a murder/suicide involving his former best buddy Asher Beal.
Just what Beal has done to ruffle Peacock's feathers is unclear until near the end of this 273-page novel.
Quick uses humour - often of the blackest variety - to help readers engage with Peacock, particularly when he meets (and develops a crush on) an attractive Christian fundamentalist.
These jokey asides are often delivered by way of footnotes, which up to half a page take some getting used to, but once you get over the annoyance of them they actually help provide some hilarious background.
Humour also helps provide a human element to an unfolding disaster, but, given the weight of its subject matter can almost too flippant at times.
However, this minor quibble aside, this work of fiction will get readers thinking about an issue that is too often the subject of newspaper and television headlines.
• Hamish McNeilly is an ODT Dunedin reporter.
