#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A literary tour de force that chronicles a prize-winning author's descent into an almost suicidal depression.
"Compelling ... Harrowing ... a vivid portrait of a debilitating disorder ... It offers the solace of a shared experience."—The New York Times
A work of great personal courage and a literary tour de force, this bestseller is Styron's true account of his experience of crippling 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.
WILLIAM STYRON (1925-2006), a native of the Virginia Tidewater, was a graduate of Duke University and a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. His books include
Lie Down in Darkness, The Long March, Set This House on Fire, The Confessions of Nat Turner, Sophie’s Choice, This Quiet Dust, Darkness Visible, and
A Tidewater Morning. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the Howells Medal, the American Book Award, the Légion d’Honneur, and the Witness to Justice Award from the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation. With his wife, the poet and activist Rose Styron, he lived for most of his adult life in Roxbury, Connecticut, and in Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts, where he is buried.
