Darkness Visible - A Memoir of Madness by William Styron (1990)

“We do not believe in Hell, we cannot imagine it, yet it exists, one can suddenly find oneself there, in the depths of depression. This is the lesson of this small, beautiful and terrible book. It is the story of severe depression, with its procession of anxiety, insomnia, “devastating outbursts” and the temptation of suicide. William Styron shows us for the first time what this interior “storm of darkness” really is. It can strike anyone at any time, but perhaps more particularly certain writers or artists. Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, Romain Gary, Primo Levi, Van Gogh: the list of these designated prey of this shadow would be long. Hell, therefore, such as that of Dante, a pain with no other way out than self-destruction, an incommunicable state of trance, that others do not suspect, not even psychiatrists. But healing is possible; we can learn new knowledge, with precision and courage. The great novelist William Styron pleads here both for a better understanding of others lost in horror and against the taste for nothingness that hovers over all of us.” Philippe Sollers.

Author: William Styron was born on June 11, 1925 in Newport News, Virginia. He grew up in the southern United States and was steeped in its history.  Styron’s paternal grandparents were slave owners, but his mother, a Yankee from the north, and his father, a progressive, gave him very broad ideas on race relations in the United States. Styron’s childhood was difficult. His father suffered from depression and his mother died from breast cancer when William was 13 years old. William Styron spent time living in Rome and Paris; he was a connoisseur of European literature which influenced his style.

He died on November 2006 at the age of 81. He wrote great books such as The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967) and Sophie's Choice (1979).

My thoughts: I read this book in August 2009 and re-read it recently. It is an easy read and not at all scientific, with little in the way of medical vocabulary, except when William mentions the medicine he took and their effects on his mental and physical health.

In 127 pages, William Styron explains the depression he suffered in 1985, how he plunged into this state, how he was at that time and how he escaped. Personally, I found this to be a very interesting approach and a good way to explain depression in general. William also says that understanding this illness allowed him not to judge those who commit suicide to escape too much suffering due to their state of despair. This was the case for many of his friends, Romain Gary, Jean Seberg to name but a few…The question that William raises is: is life worth living? To my point of view, YES.

The part that interested me most was his description of the symptoms of depression.  He outlines what is going on in the head of a depressive person with this disease. Now I understand better the distress of these people. Fortunately, melancholy (the old name for depression) was recognised as a disease long ago and ever since there have been effective treatments for it.