Brian Cook's Blog

When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers. – Oscar Wilde

‘My bedside book is a revolver (…) and maybe one day, when I go to bed, instead of pressing the light switch, distracted, I make a mistake and pull the trigger’.

Jacques Rigaut, 30 December 1898 – 9 November 1929, was a French surrealist poet. His works frequently featured suicide. At the age of 30 he shot himself in the chest using a ruler, apparently as a site line to ensure the bullet struck his heart.

His suicide inspired the book Will O’ the Wisp by Pierre Drieu la Rochelle. French director Louis Malle based the movie The Fire Within on the book.