Jim Ashilevi explores grief, friendship and growing older

In a review published by ERR and originally appearing in Sirp, Priit Põldma writes that he had been waiting for Jim Ashilevi’s new book, “The Human Costume,” even before he knew it was coming. He says he missed the author’s warmth, directness, self-irony, idealism, sensitivity and dark humour.

Ashilevi’s previous autobiographical book, “Love Letters to the Theatre,” came out ten years ago. His poetry collection “Suutud” was published in 2025. Põldma says Ashilevi’s view of a familiar world helps him better understand how he feels within it.

The book’s starting point, according to its cover, is the death of Ashilevi’s close friend Margus Karu, who succumbed to long-term depression. Põldma notes the difficulty of writing about a loved one’s suicide without resorting to clichés, entrenching trauma or romanticising suicide. “Pain has no language,” one person who had also lost someone to suicide recently told him.

Ashilevi once described Karu as “not a writer, but the voice of a generation,” in a tribute published in June 2017. The book, Põldma writes, is not only about one person or one friendship. It also tells the story of a circle of friends, and perhaps a generation, through references to the early 2000s, including memes, song lyrics, films and television series that influenced those who came of age then.

The book considers how loss changes those left behind. Põldma quotes Ashilevi on mourning not only the person who died but also the version of oneself that existed in that relationship. Each departure, the review says, makes people different, even as some things remain unchanged.

Written between 2019 and 2025, the book was composed with long pauses. Most of it dates from 2019 to 2021, looking back to a time when personal pain and depression were not yet so visibly overshadowed by anxiety about war and a tightening global cycle of violence. Later events are also marked in the text.

The narrative moves irregularly: the notes appear to be arranged by when they were written, but the images and associations within them shift freely. The account can move from the beginning of Margus and Jim’s friendship to events after Margus’s death.

“The Human Costume” by Jim Ashilevi was edited by Maia Tammjärv and designed by Maris Kaskmann. It was published in 2026 as issues 24–26 of Loomingu Raamatukogu and runs to 136 pages.