Darkness Visible : A Memoir of Madness - Softcover

William Styron

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099285576 ISBN 13: 9780099285571

Publisher: Vintage Classics, 2001

Synopsis

In the summer of 1985 William Styron was overtaken by persistent insomnia and a troubling sense of malaise - the first signs of a deep depression that would engulf his life and leave him on the brink of suicide. Darkness Visible takes us on an unprecedented journey into the realm of madness. It is an intimate portrait of the agony of Styron's ordeal, as well as a probing look at an illness that affects millions but is still widely misunderstood. Through his remarkable candour and powers of description comes a true understanding of the anguish of a desperate mind. Darkness Visible is a bold and an ultimately uplifting exploration of depression's dark reality.

About this title

Review:

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.

From the Inside Flap:

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.
From the Trade Paperback edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Classics
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0099285576
• ISBN 13: 9780099285571
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 108