Where the Roots Reach for Water: A Personal and Natural History of Melancholia

by Jeffery Smith

Winner of the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir

Jeffery Smith was living in Missoula, Montana, working as a psychiatric case manager when his own clinical depression began. Eventually, all his prescribed antidepressant medications proved ineffective. Unlike so many personal accounts, Where the Roots Reach for Water tells the story of what happened to Smith after he decided to give them up. Trying to learn how to make a life with his illness, Smith sets out to get at the essence of--using the old term for depression--melancholia.

Deftly woven into his "personal history" is a "natural history" of this ancient illness. Drawing on centuries of art, writing and medical treatises, Smith finds ancient links between melancholia and spirituality, love and sex, music and philosophy, gardening, and, importantly, our relationship with landscapes.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, Mental Health

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Sjunebug · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is actually one of the more useful books I've read in the mental health field, but less in a factual way and more in a personal way. Any doctor or search engine can tell you the facts of depression, millions can tell you what it feels like, but some individuals have unique and counter-cultural ways of coping with and conceptualizing their illness. Jeffery Smith is an example of this, and if pill-popping isn't really your thing, I recommend this book. There were times when it was hard to get through but it was worth it. More astrology than I'm into, but still interesting. What I gained from this book wasn't that I need to go off my meds - I haven't and I don't plan on it - but that I can choose to make peace with depression. It has been so much healthier for me to sit with it, look at it, talk to it, and sometimes accommodate it, than to fight it tooth and nail and throw pills at it.

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty good book, the author gives up his meds and tries to co-exist with his treatment resistant depression. He writes beautifully and describes things in a heart-felt way. While he does meet a wonderful woman who helps make his life meaningful, the book is not corny and sentimental. If he writes more books, I will definitely read them.

Of course, depressed people are depressing. But this was not the case here, I had real sympathy for him. Part of this was his work ethic. Also, there was not a complete, wrapped up happy ending, the book just wound down with no real easy answers or solutions.

[Nastya Kline · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is phenomenal. A must-read for anyone with depression/mental illness or interested in it. NEED TO ADD to my library!! (Kelsey, looks like that 11-paged analysis is going to turn into 15+. Steel yourself against the inevitable.)

[Amber Schley Iragui · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book... getting through the first 100 pages was hard (as predicted) but definitely worth it. A simple, honest, detailed narrative of the author's triumph over melancholia.

[Karen]

Great book for understanding the human condition of depression .
You will love this self revealing and historical look at the saturnine personality

[Lisa Wendell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I alternately enjoyed this book and hated it--depending on the chapter. Smith's work is a complicated, not particularly cohesive mash-up of the philosophical, religious, and psychological origins and definitions of and about depression ("melancholia") with his own excruciatingly detailed memoir of suffering. He's a good writer, clearly capable of creating both lyrical, (overly) long-winded descriptions of various environmental landscapes (in particular the lush Appalachian geography where he was raised) along with a school girl's diary-like day by day account of how his own mood disorder came to shape and reorder his life.

The chapters about melancholia are fascinating, as is much of the material about his own interpretive insight into the disease of depression through the lens of his personal struggle. Unfortunately, at various points when Smith should have left well enough alone, he drops into the banal, seeming to lose his hold on the subject entirely as he elucidates the innumerable, needless, boring details of a developing relationship with both his eventual wife....and yes (sigh) his new found rebirth in god's love. I was so disappointed. After an almost surgical examination of philosophy, psychology and even scientific developments in the treatment of depression, Smith, seems to take the mainstream (simplest) way out of his existential dilemma. He finds respite in accepting his depression by rediscovering the Jesus of his Appalachian Christian youth and by forging a deep (and for him heretofore unknown) commitment to his stunningly intelligent, kind, patient, caring, compassionate loving, understanding, empathetic partner. Have I mentioned yet how lovely and kind she was? Praise be to the Lord.

I was very taken with his study of the melancholic personality, the idea of finding ways to live with and accept one's own depressive nature and introverted core traits (ideas that make extraordinary rational and spiritual sense), as well as with his explanation of how evolutionary psychology frames and defines depression as something other, perhaps larger than, a psychiatric disorder. But these enlightening sections were ultimately overwhelmed by an almost unhinged swing from an intellectual (essayist's) observations to the private journal entries of an overgrown, slightly misfit adolescent boy with a puppy love crush on a schoolmate.

Probably, Smith should have written two books--one an historical look at melancholia and the other a memoir. His attempt to combine both simultaneously was a distraction for the reader and sadly, diminished the overall significance of the attempt.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't give this a very high score because it contained much more detail that didn't necessary resonate with the whole of the story to me, plus pages of clinical research about the history of melancholia than I cared to read. I was looking for more of a memoir experience. But I have to say that Smith's writing is downright beautiful. His word pictures are prose - they make you feel unnamable things which is a true and rare gift in a writer.

[Dawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very good about melancholy and the various roots and uses of depression.

I liked his personal story because it was very honest. He did not sugar-coat his mistakes, his failings, his weaknesses, or try to give excuses or justifications.

If you suffer from melancholy, this is a good read.

Take care if buying or recommending for someone else. This author chooses to stop taking antidepressants in order to embrace and exist alongside his melancholy tendencies. He has the support and personal relationship with a holistic physician who monitors and suggests alternative therapies. For him, someone with a more low-grade, chronic condition, being monitored by a professional, this seems to work.

Some people should NOT take that road.

[Margo Solod · Rating 3 out of 5]

i wanted to really like this book. i did want to. but it was way too spotty. i found the history of melancholia fascinating. well researched and written. but smith's personal story he interspersed with his research was not as interesting, or as well-written. in fact, i found myself skimming his personal memoir. too bad.

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

How to live WITH depression, rather than fighting it. The natural history includes neurobiological research and speculation about the disease's evolutionary purpose. Smith draws on mythology, anthropology and our relationship to natural landscapes.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. Very well written, and helps those who don't deal with depression understand better. Surprisingly, given the subject matter, it's a hopeful and encouraging book.

[Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richer and more interesting than many books about depression. Liked it very much