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Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness | 
| Author: William Styron
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $11.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  138 reviews
Sales Rank: 5737
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 96
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.3
ISBN: 0679736395
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.85270092
EAN: 9780679736394
ASIN: 0679736395
Publication Date: January 8, 1992
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Amazon.com
In 1985 William Styron fell victim to a crippling and almost suicidal depression, the same illness that took the lives of Randall Jarrell, Primo Levi and Virginia Woolf. That Styron survived his descent into madness is something of a miracle. That he manages to convey its tortuous progression and his eventual recovery with such candor and precision makes Darkness Visible a rare feat of literature, a book that will arouse a shock of recognition even in those readers who have been spared the suffering it describes.
Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 133 more reviews...
Journey into Depression July 25, 2008
This is a very slim volume, just 84 pages long, which started life as a lecture given at a symposium sponsored by the Department of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. It was later developed into a piece for Vanity Fair before being published as a book.
Styron was hit by serious depression at the age of 60, and describes most evocatively his own struggle with the life-threatening illness from first symptoms, through his treatment, his brush with suicide, hospitalisation to eventual cure. Along the way he includes the stories of friends and others so afflicted - many of them also writers.
It's the honesty of the book that makes it so compelling. It was one of the first "insider" accounts of depression, and captures extremely well just what it feels like. (You have to have been there to know.) I agree with him that the word "depression" is totally inadequate, sounding more like a mild case of the blues rather than something that fills your soul with dread and despair. (
 Disappointing June 16, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It would be lovely to believe that depression can be cured as it was for him. That all it takes is hanging in there long enough, and eventually it will go away. I can appreciate that this author feels that having gone thru what he did, that he knows what he is talking about, but sadly he doesn't. I don't know if his depression was a result of alcoholism. The way he writes, I don't think so, I think that the alcoholism was a result of the depression. I also don't think you are ever "cured" from depression -- it will always linger in the back of your mind, waiting.....
Taking A Scalpel To Depression June 4, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I'll admit it - the first few times I tried reading Darkness Visible was a disaster. That long, overdrawn anecdote about his trip to Paris was as dry as and enjoyable as sucking on cardboard. Then, I made (or skipped) it to chapter two. Bingo. From there Styron starts talking about Camus, Hoffman and Levi, all of whom had an impact on his life. From there, I started getting some perspective.
Styron can write, that's a fact. And the guy employs more interesting adjectives than Microsoft does workers. But that is a plus and a minus. Sometimes the writing takes too long to hit a point. Other times, his verbiage is dead on and leaves you breathless. To his credit, he is aware as anyone that heavy depression lies beyond words. It's an experience and not one anybody should have to endure. As well, I don't think I've ever seen a better investigation of a man looking at his every emotion under a microscope. Reading up on medication, consuming the DSM-IV like a doctor; he understood his depression more than most psychiatrists can dream to.
After I completed the book, I read it again and it got better. His description of depression will illuminate the sensory feeling of it for the depressed. If you have suffered from depression, I guarantee, you will find yourself here. For the layman, for those who don't know this cruel disease, it will offer, as best words can, a blow by blow account of how it feels day by day, hour by hour.
I do recommend this book. Not as a study but a first hand account. If you want statistics and such, there are plenty of books out there to mull over. Depression, by its nature, can be profoundly confusing and nearly impossible to put into any cognitive thought or words. This is how it feels beneath the dreary emptiness, the inability to smile or make toast. This is the blueprint. If you've endured depression or are, this may offer you some insight to your condition. If you've escaped the black cloud of melancholia but you want to know, this is a good place to start.
Darkness Visible May 22, 2008
This insightful book views suicide from the side of one who has suffered from a desire for self destruction. For the survivors of a suicide it is difficult to answer so many questions following the event, this book begins to answer questions of the thought process leading up to suicide.
Another excellant book to consider reading on the subject is "No Time to Say Goodbye, Surviving the Suicide of a Loved One" by Carla Fine. It draws from the experiences of many who have been through it and offers counsel.
 Thanks is not enough April 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I can't thank William Styron enough for this book. Suffering from depression myself, I had days in which I was counting breaths just to make it through the day. This book got me through another day in the darkest of places.
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