Suicide is a societal taboo, even though millions of people take their own lives worldwide every year. In 18 biographical portraits of famous suicides, Birgit Lahann explores and traces the path to this unstoppable end. These are mysterious, exciting, and spectacular stories that deal with fears, love, a longing for death, but also with the often cruel political circumstances of the 20th century. Headlines and public discussions only arise when celebrities take their lives. Ernest Hemingway, Kurt Tucholsky, Sylvia Plath, Ernst Toller, Primo Levi, Virginia Woolf, Vincent van Gogh, the Mann family - these are just some of the individuals whose lives and deaths Birgit Lahann has documented. In her preface, the author outlines reasons for suicide and provides examples of how writers and painters have made suicide a major theme in their literature and art.