Minor Joelle cruxes
(the record is unusually direct for a single-sighting minor; strongly-supported would not have been a misreading had the composition question been decided the other way — it was not).
In plain terms: two smaller Joelle questions -- that her freebase overdose at the Notkin party was a deliberate suicide attempt she survives, and that Orin used her as a go-between to reach his father.
Where the text lands: the deliberate-intent reading is the best-supported one; the go-between reading is also best-supported but at a ceiling. Among readers: thin records -- a minority sighting for the overdose, a single near-textual sighting for the mediation.
For the overdose, the plan (p. 222) and its execution (pp. 238-239) are narrated before she uses, and no counter-text was found. For the mediation, the operative sentence sits near-verbatim to the theory (pp. 739-740) but the text frames it as Joelle's own construal, which caps how far it can be pushed. See Depression and anhedonia.
The question
This reading answers the crux was the Notkin-party overdose a deliberate suicide attempt.
The ruling
Weighed in the adversarial ledger Joelle's Veil and Face.
Scenes in evidence
Sources
- IJ Book Club Ep. 09: All good parties have a line for the bathroom — Ennet House grounds, the halfway-house wisdom list, tattoos, DMZ logistics, and Joelle's last party (from p. ~193, page ref ASR-derived)
- IJ Book Club Ep. 38 (S3 Ep 4 by feed position): Full of the sound and fury... — the off-the-board roadmap session: the head-dig as settled fact, JOI's save-Joelle scheme, the hole-communication mechanism, and the who-is-the-plant fight (no new pages)
- Infinite Cast Part 31: Joelle has too much fun — commentary segment (~20 min): the overdose read flatly as a suicide attempt, prose that dissociates with her, Infinite Boston, the red-flag-book taxonomy, Hamlet finally noticed
- Mapping the Zone Ep. 04: I just need to put the book down and go for a walk — monthly IJ read-through, pp. 198–306 (Joelle's overdose, the Schacht match, Ennet House, Orin's backstory, Poor Tony)