Synopses & Reviews
A work of great personal courage and a literary tour de force, this bestseller is Styron's true account of his descent into a crippling and almost suicidal depression. Styron is perhaps the first writer to convey the full terror of depression's psychic landscape, as well as the illuminating path to recovery.
Review
"A successful middle-aged writer at the peak of his powers and acclaim, Styron was seemingly inexplicably struck by insomnia and a growing sense of malaise leading to hopelessness." Library Journal
Synopsis
In a candid and moving memoir, the author of Sophie's Choice chronicles his descent into depression, discussing not only the anguish of his own experience and recovery but also how others can find help. Reissue. 15,000 first printing.
Synopsis
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time
A work of great personal courage and a literary tour de force, this bestseller is Styron's true account of his descent into a crippling and almost suicidal depression. Styron is perhaps the first writer to convey the full terror of depression's psychic landscape, as well as the illuminating path to recovery.
About the Author
William Styron was born in 1925 in Newport News, Virginia. He served in the United States Marine Corps during World War II and again for a year during the Korean War. Between his two periods in the Marines he completed his studies at Duke University and wrote his first novel, Lie Down in Darkness, which won the 1951 Prix de Rome of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Styron lived for a short time in Paris, where he wrote his novel The Long March (1953) and participated in founding the literary magazine The Paris Review, of which he is still an advisory editor. He is the author of three more novels, Set This House on Fire (1960), The Confessions of Nat Turner, which won the 1967 Pulitzer Prize, and Sophie's Choice (1979); a play, "In the Clap Shack" (1973); and an essay dealing with depression, Darkness Visible (1990). This Quiet Dust, a collection of nonfiction pieces, was published in 1982. His most recent book, a collection of three stories written when he was a young man, was A Tidewater Morning. As well as the Pulitzer and the Prix de Rome, Styron is the recipient of the National Book Award, the Howells Medal, and the Edward MacDowell Medal.