When I Was Five I Killed Myself

Burton Rembrandt has the sort of perspective on life that is almost impossible for adults to understand: that of an eight-year-old.

And to Burt, his parents and teachers seem to be speaking a language he cannot understand. This is Burt’s story as written in pencil on the walls of the Quiet Room in the Children’s Trust Residence Center, where he lands after expressing his ardent feelings for a classmate. It begins: When I was five I killed myself. Rarely has a child’s particular frame of mind been so indelibly set down on the page as in this extraordinary novel. In When I was five I killed myself, Howard Buten renders with astounding insight and wry language the tale of a young boy testing the boundaries of love and life.