Darkness Visible : A Memoir of Madness : Vintage Classics

Darkness Visible : A Memoir of Madness : Vintage Classics
ISBN: 9780099285571
Publication Date: 5 April 2001

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

In the summer of 1985 William Styron was overtaken by persistent insomnia and a troubling sense of malaise - the first signs of a deep depression that would engulf his life and leave him on the brink of suicide. Darkness Visible takes us on an unprecedented journey into the realm of madness. It is an intimate portrait of the agony of Styron's ordeal, as well as a probing look at an illness that affects millions but is still widely misunderstood. Through his remarkable candour and powers of description comes a true understanding of the anguish of a desperate mind. Darkness Visible is a bold and an ultimately uplifting exploration of depression's dark reality.

About the Author

William Styron (1925-2006), a native of the Tidewater region of Virginia, was a graduate of Duke University and a veteran of the Marine Corps. His books include Lie Down in Darkness, The Long March, Set This House on Fire, The Confessions of Nat Turner, Sophie's Choice, This Quiet Dust, Darkness Visible, A Tidewater Morning and, most recently, The Suicide Run. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, the Howells Medal, the American Book Award and the Legion 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.