Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness

if you live with someone depressed

Styron's book can be a great help to those who live with someone who is depressed as well as for those who are themselves depressed. It can be so difficult to understand what is happening with someone who has depression and Styron's book gives one point of view on what is going on.

Dissappointing. It read like an assignment in his therapy and not a book to hold the interest of a reader.

What It's Really Like

The Pulitzer Prize winning William Styron writes about his own battle with severe depression. As one who has suffered this condition on and off for decades, I can tell you he gives the best description of depression I have ever read. An excellent book to recommend to families of anyone suffering depression, also. I highly recommend it. The main characters in his novels, including the renowned "Sophie's Choice", all suffered from this dibilitating condition.
You couldn't find a better read on the subject.

An informed and factual book for depression.

William Styron tells it how it is. He pulls no punches in spelling out an illness of depression leading to suicidal ideation. Styron describes the onset of depression to the point of coming back again out of the darkness. Darkness visible is very apt, but yet there are those ignorant to the fact, that depression is a very real debillitating illness for the sufferer. Styron deals with each stage of depression and the environment around him with extreme courage, being driven to suicide and how he deals with a life or death situation. Memoirs of madness being the secondary title, just about conjours it up. Styron, as others that suffer depression, believe they are stark raving mad and/or insane. Noone knows why a person suffers depression and becomes ill. Styron is able to give his account , which gives a better understanding without being too heavy or written with lengthy medical references to psychiatry. This book is an excellent book for those wishing to gain an insight into the subject of depression and a useful book for those also suffering from depression.