In 1990, the novelist William Styron published Darkness Visible, a brief, unrelentingly intense memoir describing his plunge into the depths of suicidal depression. His personal story gripped the public: It hit the number one spot on the New York Times bestseller list and reinvigorated interest in Styron’s other work.¹ Since the appearance of Darkness Visible, the depression memoir has become a veritable genre in its own right. Elizabeth Wurtzel’s 1994 account of her illness, Prozac Nation, also soared to bestseller status, eventually inspiring a motion picture with the same title. The stream has continued, with scholars (Sharon O’Brien, Eric Wilson),...
...MoreBook Joseph E. Davis; Ana Marta Gonzalez (2016) To Fix or To Heal: Patient Care, Public Health, and the Limits of Biomedicine.
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