Darkness Visible

William Styron, the novelist best known for Sophie's Choice, looks back on the summer of 1985, when a severe depression brought him to the edge of despair and thoughts of suicide. The book follows his stay in a psychiatric hospital, the Austen Riggs Center in Massachusetts, and the slow, uneven path that led him back toward health.

Rather than offering a neat cure, Styron describes from the inside what depression feels like, from the hopelessness that settles over ordinary life to the dread that drives a person toward self-destruction. The account is candid and unsparing, and it is written for those who have lived through a similar illness as well as for readers who have never experienced one and want to understand the suffering involved.

The memoir is brief, and its focus stays close to Styron's own experience, which gives it an intimate, personal force. Readers interested in mental illness, recovery, or the writing life of a major American novelist will find much to consider here.