Arianna Rebolini reading at Tiny Raccoon Books
Schedule
Sat May 23 2026 at 07:00 pm to 09:00 pm
UTC-04:00Location
Tiny Raccoon Books | Sayville, NY
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Join author Arianna Rebolini at Tiny Raccoon Books on May 23rd at 7pm for a reading from her book, "Better: A Memoir About Wanting to Die."The event will be moderated by Erika Swyler. Arianna will take questions and discuss the book after a reading. We will have copies of her book for sale and she will sign copies.
About the book
Why do so many people want to die—and how do we begin to understand what makes a person choose suicide?
After a decade of therapy and a stint in a psychiatric ward to treat suicidal depression, Arianna Rebolini was “better.” She’d published her first book, enjoyed an influential, rewarding publishing job, and celebrated both a marriage and the birth of her first child. But none of it was enough to keep the desire to die at bay. One night, grappling with overwhelming debt and a pro-longed depression, she composed goodbye letters to her husband and son while they slept just feet away.
In Better, Arianna interweaves the story of this period of crisis with decades of personal and family history, from her first cry for help in the fourth grade with a plastic knife, to her fears of passing down the dark seed of suicide to her own son, to her brother’s own life-threatening affliction. To make sense of this dark desire, Arianna pored over the journals, memoirs, and other writings of famous suicides, and eventually developed theories on what makes a person suicidal.
Her curiosity was driven by the morbid, impossible need to understand what happens in the fatal moment between wanting to K*ll oneself and doing it—or, unthinkably, the moment between regretting the action and realizing it can’t be undone. When her brother became institutionalized, Arianna realized that all of the pattern recognition and trenchant insights could not crack the shell of his annihilating depression—and that the only way to help a person live is to address the societal factors that make them want to die.
About the author
Arianna Rebolini is a writer and editor born and raised in New York. Formerly the Books Editor at BuzzFeed News, her criticism, essays, and features have appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, Esquire, TIME, The Cut, Vulture, and elsewhere. She is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and has been awarded residencies at the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts as well as the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow.
Her debut novel, Public Relations (Grand Central Publishing), co-authored with Katie Heaney, is out now. She lives in Queens with her husband, son, and two cats.
About the moderator
Erika Swyler is the bestselling author of the critically acclaimed novels We Lived On the Horizon, Light From Other Stars and The Book of Speculation. Her writing has appeared in The Writer’s Chronicle, Literary Hub, VIDA, The New York Times, People, and elsewhere. She lives on Long Island, NY, with her husband and a mischievous house rabbit.
Parking:
1- We have a small lot behind the store accessible from Hiddink Street. Our back door is open.
2- The LIRR lot is one block away- right next to the Gas station across the street on Depot Street. There are over 100 spots.
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Where is it happening?
Tiny Raccoon Books, 277 Railroad Ave, Sayville, NY 11782-2749, United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
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