Customer Reviews

Hello to All That: A Memoir of War, Zoloft, and Peace

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This touching autobiography wins on two fronts as John Falk paints quite a self portrait of his depressing teen years culminating with the miracle of Zoloft and his twenties as a journalist in Sarajevo in 1993, the heart of the hostilities. Both accounts rivet the audience as Mr. Falk explains that he was a happy preadolescent raised in a loving home when suddenly at twelve he became depressed and stayed that way for a dozen years until Zoloft gave him back his life. To celebrate his return from the living dead, John becomes a war correspondent. This segment of the book relates how the devastated city is home to people trying to stay alive. These human interest stories are touching and warm with hopes that those like a working student made it. Mr. Falk provides a heartfelt remarkable memoir of a person surviving two wars, a personal one that medicine cures and the other caused by human atrocities that should shame everyone.

Harriet Klausner

This novel jumps from present day Sarajevo in 1993 to, in the next chapter, Long Island in the 1980's. In Sarajevo Falk fights to stay alive and find stories as an inexperienced and naive freelance reporter, back on Long Island he fights a long and horrible depression that started for no reason and for twelve long hard years showed no signs of ever ending. John is convinced that no one can help him and all he can do is try to hang on and hope everything goes back to the way it was.

Through the book we see all aspects of his life and get to know Falk better than most of our closest relatives. It made me wonder how many of my close friends are secretly battling depression. John eventually does see a psychiatrist, and after a few different medications finally finds relief. After college he sets off to find himself and ends up in Sarajevo alone again. But with the help of Zoloft he knows that nothing is hopeless.

As a depression survivor, I would recommend this to anyone that thinks that they are alone without hope or anyone that has ever been comforted, as Falk was at one point, by knowing that they can end their life anytime. I know I've made the book sound depressing but Falk is a wonderful writer and the novel has many funny and uplifting moments. The world would be a better place if more people were like John Falk.

Whether navigating the harrowing world of snipers and anti-snipers in war-torn Sarajevo, or the perilous world of his own psyche, John Falk writes with wit, humor, and insight.

Falk had the guts to walk away from a cushy upper-middle-class life and into the most dangerous place on the planet. Afflicted by depression, he subjected himself to a kind of shock-treatment by journeying to Sarajevo in the hopes of becoming a freelance journalist. Once he settled in, with a monster stash of Zoloft in his bindle, Falk became close with the family who took him in as a boarder. While managing to stay alive and sane in a truly hellish battle zone, Falk sussed out a war story worthy of Heller or Vonnegut and became a successful writer. More importantly, however, he dedicated himself to helping people who badly needed it, and this personal story is the heart of the book.

I listened to John Falk present the story of this book at a recent book signing. I started reading immediately after and could not put the book down. I never thought that it was possible to understand depression - how insidious it is, and how debilitating. For years Falk lived on the edge and did a masterful job of hiding it. In captivating, very funny detail, Falk describes the battles of his personal war, and then the sudden, uneventful exit from depression into a world that he had not felt a part of for over a decade. Determined to feel alive again, Falk chooses to again live on the edge in Bosnia where his life changes forever. A great book - a movie waiting to happen.

From the moment I picked up Falk's book, I couldn't put it down. The book was masterfully written and interestingly organized - You feel like you're traveling with Falk through the chapters, just as they and he travels to and fro - his formative years in the US and later, abroad, searching, searching. . . By the end, not only had I laughed and cried, but I felt somewhat intimately involved in his journey, perseverance and lust for life all the while, he battling depression! Remarkable. The book will entertain you and most likely remind you to appreciate and be thankful for the blessings of life; at the same time, it might make you want to get off the sidelines and participate in life and deal head-on with personal demons, or at least understand that many common folks do.

I am from Sarajevo and was really moved to read this book...
Finally a writer who gives, thru his own "quest for life", such a human picture of the Sarajevo people under siege. No crap. Brilliant.

War-torn Bosnia is an unlikely place for a young man to "find" himself, but that is exactly what happened to John Falk, a would-be freelance war correspondent. After suffering from debilitating depression for a decade, John emerged --- with the help of Zoloft --- ready and determined to feel truly alive again. John's war experiences are interwoven with his struggles of depression in this most unusual, hope-filled book.

John was living a fairly normal, adolescent existence. He was a good student and athlete, had a loving family, and plenty of friends. One otherwise-ordinary morning John woke up a stranger to his previous life. He was on the outside looking in. Emotionally he was an empty pit. Thus began his fierce battle with depression. Because John acted like his usual self, no one except his family realized there was a serious problem, and he managed to keep them fooled for too long. The only thing that prevented him from committing suicide was the knowledge of how deeply it would hurt his family.

John survived adolescence and even completed college acting, always acting like he was fine. Then he isolated himself in his parents' attic where he tried to sleep his days away. Eventually he bottomed and sought help from his mother. She immediately took him to a psychiatrist who found the appropriate drug for his condition.

As John began to improve he realized how much he had missed out on, locked away in emotional and physical isolation all those years. He was extremely anxious to get back in the game called life. John had spent countless lonely hours in the attic reading books about war correspondents. Their stories fascinated him. An idea emerged --- perhaps he could jumpstart his life by becoming a war correspondent. Not deterred in the least that he had neither training nor experience for the role he sought, John cobbled together some extremely iffy press credentials and headed to Bosnia.

Through an odd combination of dumb luck, the kindness of strangers, a huge dose of chutzpah and sheer tenacity, John really did become a war correspondent. He filed many stories, always keeping his eyes and ears open for the Big Story. And he found himself deeply involved with people who were just trying to survive, to live as normal an existence as they could under horrible circumstances. Though they lacked electricity, food, fuel and running water, the people of Sarajevo hunkered down and waited for the war to end.

Sarajevo was filled with snipers, who often kept the people veritable prisoners inside their own homes. Sometimes, of course, it was necessary to leave their dwellings, and to do so was quite risky. John believed that if he could somehow manage to meet and interview a sniper (no mean feat, since snipers operate in secret) that that would be his Big Story and his ticket to whatever came next. For a time John pursued his sniper story idea but came up empty-handed. He focused on assisting three young people escape to freedom in the United States.

A chance at the Big Story practically fell into John's lap. The man in whose humble home he was living introduced him to Vlado, an antisniper. Antisnipers had only one goal: to rid the city of snipers. Vlado invited John along on his stakeouts and showed him war from a different angle. John sensed that Vlado had a secret or knew something that was vital for him to learn. Wary of John's intentions at first, Vlado eventually took him into his confidence and shared his heartbreaking story.

Finally John understood what he had come thousands of miles to learn, what it means to be fully alive. And the Big Story really did launch John's writing career.

--- Reviewed by Carole Turner

I saw the title in Borders one day and something about it just caught me. Maybe its because i was also 24, living in my mothers basement, and was on the better half of my own battle with depression, despair, and uncertainty in life. Either way, i went to the library a week later and checked it out.

An easy read, and i definitely identified with it. I think the duality of the war and flashing back to 80's long island was a great way to write the story.

It isnt a self-help book, its just a real interesting story. And easy to read and well written. Its really an inspriring coming of age story as well. The way he decided to just pack up and go to Bosnia was great.

I only gave it 4 stars cause it wont change your life or be the best book you ever read, but it was very enjoyable. If you are going through a depression or hard times, id reccomend something by Dan Millman or Dr David Burns first, but anyone thats been there can really appriciate this book.

John Falk takes the reader on the journey of his escape from depression. And while medicine plays a key part in his freedom, we also see how a brutal and bloody war also plays a role.

His description of his illness is juxtaposed nicely against teh atrocities of war and his insights into himself and the war are poingant.

A good read.

Tremendous story about an average kid growing up with an unbelievable challenge...chronic depression. I never really understood depression but after reading this book I now have a sense of what it must be like. How John delt with this very personal situation and went on to accomplish amazing things is an inspiration.