Promotional Information

'Tremendous writing-Honest and illuminating' Victoria Glendinning, New York Times

About the Author

Born at Newport News, Virginia, in 1925, William Styron was educated at Duke University. He served in the Marine Corps during the last war, and was recalled to service during the Korean War. After 1952, he lived mainly in Europe, before settling in a rural part of Connecticut. He died in 2006.

Reviews

"Hair-raising in the manner of A Tale of Horror by Edgar Allan Poe" Daily Telegraph "As short as a hangman's rope and nearly as arresting - an essay of great gravity and resonance. Never has Styron used so few words so effectively" Newsweek

Nearly 40 years ago, Styron published his first novel, Lie Down in Darkness , which revolved around the suicide of a young woman, Peyton Loftis. Now, he tells the short but very moving story of the deep depression which nearly overcame him in the summer of 1984. A successful middle-aged writer at the peak of his powers and acclaim, Styron was--seemingly inexplicably--struck by insomnia and a growing sense of malaise leading to hopelessness. He consulted a psychiatrist and was given high doses of the controversial drug Halcion for his insomnia, but his despair continued to increase until one evening he actually attempted suicide, only to be rescued by the playing of Brahms's Alto Rhapsody in a video he was watching. He immediately had himself hospitalized, and after several weeks in the security and healing atmosphere of the hospital began to feel himself again. Expanded from a 1989 Vanity Fair article, this book is highly recommended. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/90.-- Marcia G. Fuchs, Guilford Free Lib., Ct.

"Hair-raising in the manner of A Tale of Horror by Edgar Allan Poe" Daily Telegraph "As short as a hangman's rope and nearly as arresting - an essay of great gravity and resonance. Never has Styron used so few words so effectively" Newsweek