Horror film director accused of encouraging suicide in his new book.

LONDON - Aug. 31, 2013 - PRLog -- Six years ago, in January 2007in London, UK, Lawrence Pearce sat in a concrete car park desperately trying to save the life of a stranger who had jumped seven floors to their death. It was his night off from directing a low budget British horror movie called Night Junkies, which starred Katia Winter (star of Fox’s forthcoming Sleepy Hollow) and went on to be released worldwide.

He went from covering actors with fake blood on set, to being covered himself with real blood just outside his apartment building in the space of a few hours.

Afterwards, Pearce learned from the police and post-mortem that the stranger was an alcoholic and heavily under the influence when he jumped. The stranger had also been through a traumatic relationship breakup.

Six years later Pearce released a novel inspired by the suicide victim, his alcoholism and his broken heart. The book is The Haunted Hikikomori, and was released to rave reviews this month.

However, some have since claimed Pearce's book encourages suicide by writing about it in such a way as to depict the fatal act as freeing and releasing. Concerns about the message of the book and the influence it may have on depressed and potentially suicidal readers have disturbed the author. He took to twitter to defend his book, telling his 17,000 readers:

'Let me state that I feel depicting suicide is not the same as encouraging, just as depicting violence is not encouraging.'

And in another tweet:

'Disturbs me that readers felt I was encouraging suicide with my book. Yes it has suicide in it and no I don't condemn... but encourage?'

In The Haunted Hikikomori, three characters commit suicide, with the phrase 'I let go,' being repeated at the moment of death. The deaths are written so that the characters finally feel the weight of their depression lifted from them as they kill themselves. Two of the characters smile as they die.

But Pearce claims these scenes are metaphors for the release of anguish, guilt and misery, adding:

'I think in art, difficult topics should be expressed without fear and portrayed in intelligent ways which stirs reaction and thought.'

Calls for Pearce to remove his book from sale on Amazon have been rebuffed. Much in the way the debate about violent video games and movies and the influence they may or may not have on violence in real life, the question of whether Pearce's book about suicide is artistic expression or a misguided instruction manual will rage on.

The Haunted Hikikomori by Lawrence Pearce is available on paperback and Kindle through Lawrence Pearce's website - http://lawrencepearce.com

His Twitter account is - http://twitter.com/lawrencepearce