Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression

by Nell Casey (Editor)

Unholy Ghost is a unique collection of essays about depression that, in the spirit of William Styron's Darkness Visible, finds vivid expression for an elusive illness suffered by more than one in five Americans today. Unlike any other memoir of depression, however, Unholy Ghost includes many voices and depicts the most complete portrait of the illness. Lauren Slater eloquently describes her own perilous experience as a pregnant woman on antidepressant medication. Susanna Kaysen, writing for the first time about depression since Girl, Interrupted, criticizes herself and others for making too much of the illness. Larry McMurtry recounts the despair that descended after his quadruple bypass surgery. Meri Danquah describes the challenges of racism and depression. Ann Beattie sees melancholy as a consequence of her writing life. And Donald Hall lovingly remembers the "moody seesaw" of his relationship with his wife, Jane Kenyon.

The collection also includes an illuminating series of companion pieces. Russell Banks's and Chase Twichell's essays represent husbandand-wife perspectives on depression; Rose Styron's contribution about her husband's struggle with melancholy is paired with an excerpt from William Styron's Darkness Visible; and the book's editor, Nell Casey, juxtaposes her own essay about seeing her sister through her depression with Maud Casey's account of this experience. These companion pieces portray the complicated bond -- a constant grasp for mutual understandingforged by depressives and their family members.

With an introduction by Kay Redfield Jamison, Unholy Ghost allows the bewildering experience of depression to be adequately and beautifully rendered. The twenty-two stories that make up this book will offer solace and enlightenment to all readers.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Mental Health, Essays, Mental Illness, Memoir, Writing

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Colleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book while visiting my friends Kacy, Ben, and their six-month old adorable son, Miles, on the Oregon coast. Kacy and Ben are staying in Kacy's parents house. Her parents are visiting her brother in Japan.

I realize that this family history isn't necessary to explain my enjoyment of the book. What is crucial is that you imagine where and when I read it. The house is a soft brown cabin, shingles caressing every external surface. After playing with Miles, helping cook and eat, and talking with my friends, I would retreat to the outdoor porch to feed my best and nastiest habits: reading and smoking, respectively.

The uncovered porch backs up to the Northwest forest. Oregon ash and firs bend down in recognition. I light up my cancer stick, breathe, and crack open this volume.

Now you see the contrast in the situation. Inside, I was beloved, nurtured, and joyful. Outside, I was still happy, but I could be more introspective. Self-reflection is absolutely needed while reading Unholy Ghost. For those who have suffered, or continue to suffer, depression, these stories will stir up your scariest memories. You will recall all of the painful stages of the disease: the confusion, the isolation, the fear. You will also experience the hope along with each author, as they surface after a long time under the sea.

For those who haven't experienced depression first-hand, I still recommend that you read this book. Chances are, you've been close to someone who has had depression. Some of the excerpts in this book are written by the brothers, sisters, mothers, and sons of the depressed. This allows a different perspective. Instead of feeling trapped inside the house, looking out through dirty windows, these writers provide passage for a voyeuristic journey: we are on tip-toes, trying desperately to understand what is happening inside. Can we wedge through that bathroom window? Is there some way we can help? Or should we just turn on our heels and go back home? These writers answer these questions with grace and understanding.

[Julia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was so disappointed in this book. I constantly read essays, memoirs, fiction, and academic work on psychological issues and this seemed like a good addition to the pile. However, most of the essays were incredibly boring and had nothing to do with the experience of being depressed, except that they were solipsistic and uninteresting. One or two essays along the lines of “I’m a writer and depression has related to my writing in these ways” would have been nice, but at least 75 percent of the essays in this book talked about writing (Beattie’s essay is especially impressive because it talks about writing and doesn’t even mention depression!). To make things worse, most of these essays about writing and depression were simply bad. Rambling about how various antidepressants change the word choice in your poetry? And your husband develops depression to, I don’t know, see what it’s like? Lack of diversity was also a huge issue, as Meri Nana-Ama Danquah shows in her excellent essay on depression and race. Almost every essay is by a white, educated writer living in New England or a major city, which results in an anthology that basically says the same thing over and over. So much for getting different perspectives. Similarly, few of the writers talked about very severe depression – repeated suicide attempts, hospitalizations, comorbid mental illness or substance abuse – again excluding a lot of experiences and unfortunately continuing the misconception that depression is for bored, privileged people, and its consequences are that they cannot read Virginia Woolf. Painful, but not life-threatening.

I gave this volume two stars because there were a few essays that I genuinely enjoyed and would recommend. “Poodle Bed” is funny and manages to communicate the experience of depression in just a few pages. Danquah’s essay, mentioned above, really challenged some of the dominant discourse of depression and is totally unique in the book. Although I was being flippant about Larry McMurtry’s inability to read the great authors during his depression, he actually describes his experience in a moving way and gives a different perspective as someone whose depression was brought on by heart surgery. I enjoyed the British professor’s story and a few others as well. Overall, this is a weak collection and I would recommend you skim it until you find the essays that are worthwhile.

[X · Rating 3 out of 5]

22 essays by writers on depression:

Artists and writers are associated more often with depression with a tip of the hat to an assumed "artistic temperament". Perhaps the way that artists are able to express darkness through their work could make this seem true but a particular temperament assigned to creative careers is not supported by research. Artists have the same struggles with depression as the general population but they talk, write, and sing about it more.

I found Donald Hall's essay "Ghost in the House" was especially moving. He was married to poet Jane Kenyon who struggled with depression much of her life until her death from leukemia in 1995. Kenyon wrote one of my favorite poems "Let Evening Come".

Lesley Dormen's description of depression as a "one-industry town" in her essay "Planet No" struck a chord with me:

"One of the many things I hate about the word "depression" is the assumption of blankness attached to it, as if the experience of depression is as absent on the inside as it looks to be from the outside. That is wrong. Depression is a place that teems with nightmarish activity. It's a one-industry town, a psychic megalopolis devoted to a single twenty-four-hour-we-never-close product. You work misery as a teeth-grinding muscle-straining job (is that why it's so physically exhausting?), proving your shameful failures to yourself over and over again. Depression says you can get blood from a stone, and so that's what you do. Competing voices are an irritating distraction from the work. No wonder depression doesn't get invited out much. Not because it's not the life of the party, it knows it's not that, but because self-absorption as a work ethic is so prickly and one-eyed. That's okay with depression--it figures, who'd want to be friends with it anyway?"

I don't know that someone could read this in the midst of dark days. A person who is depressed may not need to hear more about what they are already experiencing. However, through these stories, those with friends in or living on the fringes of mental illness may gain more of an understanding and respect for the complexity and frustration of this disease.

[C · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite having an introduction from the fabulous Kay Jamison, this essay collection is incredibly mediocre. Many of the essays are poorly written or circle aimlessly around the same topics. With so many evocative accounts of depression in the world, this book was a big disappointment.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

From "A Delicious Placebo" by Virginia Hefferman

I would say I was sick- sick with any ailment I could think of except "depression," which no one, no matter what the brochures with grainy girls' pictures and the word "reputable" say, will ever believe it is a real illness.

Overnight, it seemed, I'd gone from a twenty-eight-year old optimist, the type advertisers and politicians take into account, who might find a career and start a family, to a person who is unreliable and preoccupied, a person other people find themselves trying to avoid.

As I brooded over how dingy everything seemed, I wondered if I had thrown myself into depression in order to avoid having a career. It seemed like a possibility, particularly since this theory implied that I was both melodramatic and lazy. Insights generally rang true to the degree that they were self savaging.

Unless you are rich, and can convalesce in a sanatorium estate (where visitors come down a tiered, Oceanside lawn to find you at your easel), you have to keep going when you're depressed. That means phone calls, appointments, errands, holidays, family, friends and colleagues. For me, this is where things got tangled. Depression brought to me a new rationing of resources; for every twenty-four hours I got about three, then two, then one hour worth of life reserves-personality, conversation, motion. I had to be frugal while I was hustling though a day, because when I ran out of reserves, I lost control of what I said.

From "Noontime" by Lauren Slater

When Benjamin and I decided to get pregnant, I visited four perinatal specialists to find out what the risks to the fetus would be if I stayed on my medication regime.The doctors, given the seriousness of my struggles with depression and anxiety, said "stay on." They used words like "risk benefit analysis" and "statistical significance" and those words made no difference to me. They said it would be more dangerous for me to go off my medication than for the fetus to be on it, but even as they announced this, I saw a look of alarm in their eyes. I decided to listen to their words, not their looks.

I have been told I need these pills to survive, same as a diabetic needs insulin, how ridiculously simplistic, but I'll tell you it's true. These pills, more than any egg or sperm, have brought me to the point in my life where pregnancy is possible. They threaten the embryo in the same time that they have ushered it from nothingness.

I know these symptoms, I do not have emphysema, or a bad heart, I am slipping- without my medication I always slip. I must go back on. "I just couldn't put my child at risk like that," I recall a friend of mine saying when, in the middle of her anxiety ridden pregnancy she was offered Paxil. "I would always look at my child and wonder what I had done to him."

I can hear the doctor's words. I know all the rationalizations. Stress, after all, may be worse for the fetus than the pills used to combat it. You cannot take care of a child unless you take care of yourself. I know all this. It barely informs my motives.

From "Strands" by Rose Styron

When I finally figured out that Bill was depressed- not just moody or in withdrawal or angry at life but clinically depressed- I knew we needed professional help...When Bill's pain was at its worse, he was able to take advise from friends, who had been through something similarly, more easily than from me. I became the scholar of Bill's moods and behavior...now a delicate balancing act ensued (one thing depressives are good at is keeping you off balance.)

From "An Unwelcome Career" by David Karp

Like everyone who suffers from depression, I spent a lot of time considering its causes...I thought for sure that my depression was rooted in these situational demands and that once I got tenure it would go away. In 1977, I was promoted and found the depression actually deepened. This suggested a wholly new and more frightening interpretation of depression's locus. I had to confront the possibility that my sickness might not have arisen from social situation, but somehow from my self.

From "On Living Behind Bars" by Nancy Mairs

Never mind the successes I'd had in the past... they were quirks of fate. I achieved each one with the last reserves of my energy and abilities. I lived at the edge of catastrophe. Certain that the next step would push me over, I hung back emotionally even though I took each step as it was expected of me. "I'm afraid, to in a vague, uneasy way. Afraid of what I can do...I am afraid to grow. I am afraid that when the time comes that I am grown, I will not be able to face life for fear it will not be as beautiful as it is in my private existence."

From "A Melancholy of Mine Own" by Joshua Wolf Shenk

Perhaps depression is simply hard to convey- even as Styron says "indescribable." But I'd like to suggest another possibility, that what we call "depression," like the mythical black bile, is a chimera. That it is cobbled together of so many different parts, causes, experiences, and affects as to render the word ineffectual and perhaps even noxious to a full, true narrative.

I felt as I had felt for as long as I could remember. I did not go to therapy to understand, or to get through, an episode. I needed to understand and get through my life.

In High School, I wrote in a poem that I wished "to be a slug, to have an exterior that exposed what I felt.' I greatly desired to speak the whole truth. Instead, much of the time, I merely said, Thank you, thank you. I'm getting up now, going to school, going eventually to college and the bright future that everyone expected. But the present, which I tried so hard to dodge, could not be dodged.

I hoped for such fluid, full, direct communication in therapy, I tried to express the relentless streams of criticism that I directed at myself and others, the way I felt split in two, the dull and sharp aches that moved around my body as though taunting me. I wished to plug in a probe from my brain to the doctor's so that he could see- without mediation how I stood outside myself, watching and criticizing and could never full participate in a moment. How I felt bewildered, anguished, horrified.

In his exhaustive survey, Melancholia & Depression From Hippocratic Times to Modern Times, the historian Stanley W. Jackson concludes that ...over 2,500 years, two images recur most often "being in a state of darkness and being weighed down."

From "The Legacy" Martha Manning

When I was depressed...he tried to get me to articulate what was wrong. Anyone who is seriously depressed knows that that task is as daunting as asking a lame man to tap-dance.

The medicine helped quickly and dramatically. It lifted a lifelong weight off my back and made me wonder, "Is this how regular people feel?" But like many people who take psychotropic medications for significant periods of time, I struggled with questions like, "Why can't I do this on my own?" or, looking at tiny pills, "Is this all that stands between hell and me?"

[Catherine Wylie · Rating 5 out of 5]

During the depths of a major depressive episode, this book felt like good company rather than something I probably should not be reading. Other than William Styron's "Darkness Visible," (which a part of is included here,) I don't know of many other books that have the power to bring empathy, compassion, and the mastery of the written word to bear on the existential devastation of clinical depression.

Though each writer's story is unique, the sentiment of being on the outside of life is universal, along with the pain of not knowing when it will end, or if one will emerge sane again. At the same time, each writer seems to have emerged stronger for the experience. I believe I experienced the knowing power of catharsis through each essay while reading. It made my existing depression feel like not such a curse but something through which to explore extremely personal and exquisite creative expression. Even though I was not up to writing my own essay of my own blackness, I was able to get in touch with the character of my own story of depression and find some nurturing there and regain a sense of intimacy with myself as a whole.

My favorite essays are by the editor herself, Nell Casey, and her sister, Maud Casey. Susan Keysen, author of "Girl, Interrupted," writes brilliantly on the positive aspects of depression. I tried to read, "Girl, Interrupted" right after this, but it fell short of both her essay and the movie.

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found it deeply comforting to hear depression described in a literary way.

[Becca · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book of essays is not merely a collection of sad stories from depressed artists, but rather an exploration of all sides of the illness-- from inside and outside, from before and after, from searching to knowing. That's what makes it so incredible.

I have read many collections and memoirs of madness, and few have successfully painted a full picture of depression in a way that isn't contrived. Unholy Ghost successfully dodges that easy trap by allowing each writer to enter the subject from a different angle. Importantly, these writers are remarkable in their own right, and their explorations of the personal are not only deeply felt, but thoughtful, intelligent, and masterfully crafted.

For anyone that has been depressed (or anyone at all, truly), this book echos beautifully and is a marvelous read.

[Michelle Hoogterp · Rating 5 out of 5]

I highly recommend this to people either struggling with depression, as I have, or to people who know depressives. It's a great insight to see into a very dark cave that depression is. To me it's like a reverse Plato's cave--where the cave is dark and on the wall there are shadows/slivers of light and I want to lift my hand to snatch the light but can't seem to move or understand why I'm in the cave to begin with.

This is also a great book for creative souls who struggle with depression. It lifts, depending on the depth of the cave you're in, the horror a bit in knowing you're not the only one in the cave though you can't see, hear, smell, or touch the others.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look at the various faces of depression and the attempts to express the inexpressible by people who normally express things well. Certain of the stories rang true or struck close to home for me; certain others didn't. I had to take this a little bit at a time, because the overwhelming stories of depression are not the best reading material for a time when you are overwhelmed and even depressed. But I learned a few things, most important, that I am not alone in the things I experience.

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good of a collection as I had hoped for. I thought the pieces were uneven in staying on topic. William Styron's excerpt from DARKNESS VISIBLE was, of course, the best piece, and his wife's essay on dealing with his depression was also quite interesting. The other essays really weren't all that compelling and amounted to a lot of navel-gazing.

[Maria Shaul · Rating 3 out of 5]

האמת - היו כמה סיפורים שדילגתי עליהם, היה משעמם.
אחרים עזרו לי מאוד

[Lisa M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I buy books, I am generally buying them at used bookstores, library sales, or discount book sellers. I take home huge hauls, shelve them, and refer to my collection over the upcoming months. My love of books combined with my frugal nature prevents me from purchasing full-price books very often. This type of book purchasing does have it's downside, however. I go into a book frenzy. If a book has a low price sticker on it and is even related to a topic I like, I buy it. The second thoughts only come later, at home, when I'm choosing my next book to read. This was one of the books I had second thoughts on.

I live with mental illness, and have done extensive academic work on it (published papers.) Although I am no longer in academia, I am still very interested in mental illness from all angles, and purchase many books on it. I admit, I used to have radical views on mental illness - they've mellowed, over time, but they're still there.

So when I pulled this book from my shelf (purchased for only a quarter from a library!) I started to question why I had purchased this book, and blamed it on the book haze. There were a few things I didn't like about the back cover - including the fact that Susanna Kaysen was included. I am not a fan of Girl Interrupted. But it was only a quarter and I owned it now, so I proceeded.

This book was not fact checked. At all. This became apparent with the first essay, "A Delicious Placebo." I felt I could not trust any of the facts authors presented in this collection because of this fact. Although other essays presented true facts (i.e, men successfully commit suicide more than women,) they did not present them fully (i.e., wondering why this might be when we have the answer - men choose to commit suicide more "actively," with a gun or other "violent" weapon, will women choose "passive" options, like pills.) Or, they spent pages and pages wondering what the answer might be, only to include this additional information further in the essay. I will admit, the treatment of this really angered me and distracted me from the book. Anger may seem a bit strong, but there is so much misinformation perpetuated about mental illness that it should be handled directly and correctly. Also keep in mind that this book considers depression to also include bipolar disorder (I guess because of the term manic depression?,) and disorders that better fall in the anxiety family. I am not one who believes in rigid diagnosis lines, but some of what they categorized as depression here just could not fall under that umbrella, no matter how you portrayed it.

Essays also tended to be on the "you aren't handling your depression until you take medication" track. The "it doesn't matter what else you do, medication is your only salvation" track. I think it is very dangerous to assume that everyone needs medication, to assume that nothing else can or should be done for this illness - and that is definitely an impression I got here. There were essays that differed from that, but they were too far and in between.

I enjoyed the fact that there were essays by people whose loved ones suffered from mental illness (one piece addressed someone with bipolar disorder.) It also included essays from their loved ones with the disorder! I have never seen a book of essays include something like that. It was interesting to get their perspective. Even though I've had loved ones and partners with mental illness, I identify strongly with the person who is suffering - not the mental illness. So it was interesting to learn about their experiences, especially when they have the loved one's essay included.

Don't get me wrong. There were some middle ground and great essays in this collection. There was an essay on depression during and after pregnancy- and if the facts provided were correct, I learned a lot about prenatal depression. I also really enjoyed an essay on race and depression, which I had never read on before (and is rarely presented in literature.) Those were rewarding. There were some essays I identified with, although I laughed when many said that depression is "Just a passing phase." Yeah, ok.

The collection is also written with writing in mind - so by "writers on depression," it doesn't mean essays, but essays on depression from a writers' viewpoint. You also get a tasting of many people who've written books/memoirs on their depression - some essays are direct selections from their work (which I don't like.) It's a good way to get a primer and figure out who you will and won't read in the future. Unfortunately, I won't be reading many works by these authors any time soon.

[Kevin Krein · Rating 2 out of 5]

so every year in our community, some well to do middle age white women, organize a community reading event; meaning that they pick a book, a bunch of people who live in the town are encouraged to read it, then they have events based around the book (discussions, et. al.)

two years ago the topic was immigration and last year it was poverty- again, subjects well to do middle age white women are subject matter experts on. anyway, this year, they opted to cover mental health, and for the reading, they selected 'unholy ghost.'

as someone who lives with and deals with debilitating depression and crippling anxiety, i can't say the idea of going to these events or discussions is super appealing to me, but i thought i would give the book a read.

the book itself is relatively old. it's from 2001, and while that may not seem that old, it's old enough that it hasn't exactly aged well. the content within is also much, much older than that. many of the essays found inside are written by authors who struggled with mental health issues in the 1960s or 1970s, so you get a good sense of how clueless people were during that time period about how to properly help someone that needed it.

some of the selections are pretty good. i would have chosen a different portion of 'darkness visible' to include, but whatever. the two pieces at the end by both nell and maude casey are worth reading, and are both relatively well constructed. the issue i took with a bulk of the selections in this collection was the fact at just how rigid and formal, and therefore, kind of uninteresting, a lot of the essays were.

many of them reminded me things i would have been handed a xerox copy of in my essay writing class during my junior year of college and told to read and then discuss in class. in that rigid and formal writing, they become void of personality, and are less and less about the topic at hand, and more about the form with which one thinks they are supposed to write a personal essay.

also, a lot of these are really god damn whiney. and i sincerely hope that when i write about my own struggle with depression, that i do not come off like this.

it would be more interested, for me anyway, to read an updated collection of material on this topic, possibly by younger writers, and possibly by writers still "in" their depression. a bulk of these essays were written many years after the fact, and so they have a conclusion. with depression, when you are drowning in it, there really is no conclusion in sight.

[Francis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collection of 22 different writers discussing their experiences about depression. Many of the contributors have, at various times in their lives, had major depressive episodes. However, there were three different companion pieces written by loved ones affected second-hand by depression. As I have been battling a severe depressive episode as I read this, I could relate to many of the stories on a personal level. One of the biggest common themes between writers is that there are no words to accurately describe the feelings that someone has who has depression. Also, more than one author explained how the word ‘depression’ can mean many things to many people. How depression is diagnosed and treated is unique for each individual. I can completely agree with this, as I have tried to describe it myself, but have never found accurate words for it. Many of the contributors found the same difficulties when describing their depression. Words such as ‘sad,’ ‘angry,’ or ‘upset’ do not do justice to the feelings that I, and many of the contributors feel. A second common theme that many of the contributors touched on is the effect of antidepressants. Many of the antidepressants listed throughout were ones that I have either been on, or are currently on. I know what it is like to have these pills change your thoughts to an extreme extent. One moment I will be calm, and the second I will have extreme anxiety, even though my external circumstances have not changed one iota. After having read this book, I believe that who I was before I began having major depressive episodes is not the same person that I am today. I am continually in a struggle to find out who the new ‘me’ is. This book gave me hope that I will my answers. My two favorite selections in this anthology were An Unwelcome Career by David Karp and A Melancholy of Mine Own by Joshua Wolf Shenk. I also felt that Ann Beattie’s Melancholy and the Muse served no purpose for the anthology, and was by far my least favourite selection.

[Cindi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll start by saying that this book had some language and some sexual innuendo. I don't usually plug through a book with either of these, but in this case, I did because I could tell that I was learning some important things. I give it a high rating because of what I feel I take away from the book. I must say that for me, reading a book about depression is DEPRESSING! a sentiment expressed by one of the essay writers!

I have suffered from depression for as long as I can remember. I think it goes back to at least third grade because that's when the debilitating headaches started.

One of the most interesting things about depression is that the cause is not definitive. There are a variety of possible causes from genetics to environment to trauma. I have had all three. It's hard to say why I have depression, but I do.

I've never taken a whole lot of time to research depression until lately. Now I'm understanding just how complex it really is and how even though I'm a person who likes a concise answer, this disease is not going to allow that simple answer. There isn't an easy way to address it and it may accompany me for the rest of my life.

This book opened some windows for me and helped to understand some things. The subtitle is "writers on depression" (I didn't know when I picked it up that "writers" meant well-known writers. That made the reading of it somewhat more difficult because the writing itself was sometimes a little dense as some writers can be.) I was able to feel validated (there are people out there who understand what I'm going through) and gain some new ideas that I believe will help me. I was able to understand that there is a whole spectrum of depressed people and to see that although I struggle, it could be a lot worse. But, in reality, I must take care of myself so that I don't sink too far.

[T.D. Elliott]

this was pretty intense. especially "noontimes" by lauren slater, and obviously the contribution by russell banks. so many of these stories lead to medication, or some kind of medical treatment (in two of them, ECT is used and somewhat astonishingly, both are reported as successful) which gives one pause, but it shouldn't be taken as a book about drugs. there is an excerpt from "darkness, visible" by william styron in the book, and it is one of the best sections to include in this anthology: styron's brilliant dissection of the term 'depression' and how it has insidiously found its way into our cultural lexicon - not to mention how said invasion has shaped the way we think about and view the illness/malady/curse. really fascinating reading, and recommended for anyone - not just those who suffer from depression or who are writers.

[Kristen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recommend this book to people who know anyone coping with a mental illness. Many of the stories began long before the pharmaceuticals came up with funny cartoons and purple pills, but the symptoms and the struggles are the same. The stories offer comfort to people with mental illness -- a kind of community. Most writers coped with not wanting to take medication, symptoms of depression exacerbated by solitude even when solitude felt like the right medicine, and the guilt of seeing partners and loved ones affected. Every story in this book is different and offers another perspective to this challenging illness that affects millions of Americans, including you or someone you know.

[Kristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I ordered this book to read Rose Styron's essay. A Darkness Visible is the most profound and moving book I have ever read on the subject of depression. William Styron's account of his experience of severe depression is unforgettable. So, when I discovered that his wife, Rose, has written about her experience of being married to Bill at that time, I couldn't wait to get this book in my hands! This is a good read in the sense that the good essays made up for the bad ones. One essay is actually useless in that it doesn't so much as address depression even once?!

[Rikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not one who usually enjoys compilations of short stories or essays, but such a collection is perfect for this topic. It gives a face to the often unspoken world of depression, and when it is difficult for author's to describe, no wonder it is for the rest of the world! Situations in here are as varied as the author's themeselves, and everyone can learn a little something from what they have to say.

[Inverted · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of the time, someone talks about the morning or the night: how illuminating it is, how cold, how short, etc. I guess it's always about the outside as a way in, it being a metaphor—a transit—to inside. I started of partial, and ended almost the same, except for a few essays that made me look for a hole beneath me. I do not think I'm depressed, but it is a possibility, considering how skinless I've been lately.

[Maureen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed bag collection of essays about depression. Some essays are interesting, thought provoking, insightful and well-written; others seem like rough drafts. Some seem like magazine articles. Most have vague endings with not a lot of conclusions. I did like that it was many different stories/perspectives/authors so if one story was not written well or not great there was always another one to read.

[Joan Opyr · Rating 5 out of 5]

It seems counterintuitive that reading about depression could be uplifting, but I found this book oddly comforting. In particular, I gained a lot of insight from Donald Hall's account of wife Jane Kenyon's battle with bipolar disorder. Kenyon wrote the brilliant poem, Having It Out With Melancholy. No one has ever described the oppressive, unrelenting nature of depression better.

[Peacegal · Rating 4 out of 5]

The illness affects each person differently, so the need for an essay collection such as this is clear. The best chapter is an excerpt from Darkness Visible by Styron, which may be the best memoir of this misunderstood affliction ever written. I only had to skip one essay in this collction out of disinterest.

[Linda · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am finished for now. I usually struggle through but it is amazing how depressed authors can still find the ability to pontificate and expound on their depressions. I wasn't looking for anything uplifting, but no one needs to on and on and on in the way that most of the authors (i.e. William Styron) tend to do in this anthology of essays.

[Theresia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this for Maud and Nell Casey and my god I teared up. The writings edited here are elegant, the way only literate writers can thread the fine line about the dark suffering and the intimate glimpse of pondering, and address the experience of living with their ghost (or, in some cases, being *the* ghost).

[Mia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting essays on writers' experiences of depression. Frightening and informative--like travel writing for someplace you certainly don't want to visit.

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even when the people writing are bonafide "Writers," it is still so difficult to put into words what depression looks like from the inside. There are hits and misses, but overall, this book does a solid job describing what it's like to live with depression.

For me, however, I got the most value from reading the essays from the spouses of these writers, William Styron's wife and Jane Kenyon's widow. The hopelessness, the inability to fix it, the frustration of loving someone with depression who can't "just snap out of it." Depression becomes the axis around which the relationship revolves, and now that I've been on both sides of this disease, I find these essays far more moving.

Depression is a selfish disease, one that keeps you focused only on surviving yourself, and leaves no room for you to care for anyone else. It saddles those you love with your illness, because that's what they're dealing with; your depression, not you. And, TBH, I find this side of the equation worse. Living the depression yourself is to wear blinders to everyone around you, not by choice mind you, it's just an unfortunate part of a vicious disease. You are not given a pair of blinders to wear when it's someone else. I'd rather suffer myself than watch someone I love go through this.

Anyway, a solid collection of essays about a topic which somehow, with all that we now know, is still taboo. Definitely worth the read.

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't understand the aim of this particular collection, why these authors were chosen to include their writing on the subject, or what, if any, coherent understanding we are supposed to realize with their grouping. They are all sad tales of depression, even the few that detail some escape, and they are all in that way repetitive. For those of us who know firsthand the destructiveness of the disease either through personal experience or through sharing the experience of loved ones, there is nothing really to offer here except, perhaps: "Yep, it sucks, here's a bunch of people telling you over and over it sucks." It becomes banal, and most of it very boring, though I suppose for the authors it was somewhat cathartic. This does not make for good reading though, or even informative. For those few who have no experience with it, count yourself blessed.

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were so many different voices and perspectives in this that I found it hard to stay engaged and focused on the topic. It felt pretty haphazard.