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Darkness Visible

A Memoir of Madness

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In 1985 William Styron fell victim to a crippling and nearly suicidal depression. This book is his description of his descent into depression, an unprecedented account of the journey into madness. That he manages to convey its tortuous progression and his eventual recovery with such candor and precision makes this book a rare work that will arouse a shock of recognition even among those who have been spared the suffering it describes.

"A chilling yet hopeful report from a mental wilderness into which one in ten Americans disappears."--Chicago Sun-Times

"A striking addition to the notable personal accounts of mental illness."--The Washington Post Book World
William Styron (1925–2006), a native of the Virginia Tidewater, was a graduate of Duke University and a veteran of the US Marine Corps. His books include The Confessions of Nat Turner, Sophie’s Choice, and Darkness Visible. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the William Dean Howells Medal, the American Book Award, the Witness to Justice Award from the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation, and the Légion d’Honneur. 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. View titles by William Styron

About

In 1985 William Styron fell victim to a crippling and nearly suicidal depression. This book is his description of his descent into depression, an unprecedented account of the journey into madness. That he manages to convey its tortuous progression and his eventual recovery with such candor and precision makes this book a rare work that will arouse a shock of recognition even among those who have been spared the suffering it describes.

"A chilling yet hopeful report from a mental wilderness into which one in ten Americans disappears."--Chicago Sun-Times

"A striking addition to the notable personal accounts of mental illness."--The Washington Post Book World

Author

William Styron (1925–2006), a native of the Virginia Tidewater, was a graduate of Duke University and a veteran of the US Marine Corps. His books include The Confessions of Nat Turner, Sophie’s Choice, and Darkness Visible. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the William Dean Howells Medal, the American Book Award, the Witness to Justice Award from the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation, and the Légion d’Honneur. 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. View titles by William Styron

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