Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman's Journey Through Depression [Paperback]

Meri Nana-Ama Danquah (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 22, 1999

This moving memoir of an African-American woman's lifelong fight to identify and overcome depression offers an inspirational story of healing and emergence. Wrapped within Danquah's engaging account of this universal affliction is rare and insightful testimony about what it means to be black, female, and battling depression in a society that often idealizes black women as strong, nurturing caregivers. A startlingly honest, elegantly rendered depiction of depression, Willow Weep for Me calls out to all women who suffer in silence with a life-affirming message of recovery. Meri Danquah rises from the pages, a true survivor, departing a world of darkness and reclaiming her life.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Danquah, a black single mother and Ghanian-born immigrant, who moved to the U.S. at age six in 1973, has battled melancholy and despair, culminating in episodes of overwhelming depression. A performance artist and poet who has worked as a creative writing instructor, she discusses movingly how she overcame clinical depression in this candid memoir. Addressing the special circumstances of being both depressive and an African American woman, she notes, for example, that talking about one's parents is frowned on in African as well as African American culture. Her parents divorced when she was growing up in Washington, D.C., and she carried around suppressed rage at the father who abandoned her and the mother whose lover she claims sexually abused her. After she fled to Los Angeles in 1991, her world fell apart when, as she tells it, her common-law husband threw her out along with their two-month-old daughter. With the help of therapists, Danquah ultimately confronted these traumas and the self-hatred induced partly by pervasive racism. Yet antidepressant drugs numbed her and drove her to alcohol. She kicked both habits and now overcomes the blues (the book's title is from a Billie Holiday song) through music, meditation and vigilant monitoring to avoid self-destructive situations and moods. She tells her story poignantly and affectingly.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

In this brutally painful memoir, Danquah, a young single mother, reveals how her illness began, how it progressed to the point where she couldn't function, and how she finally got the support she needed to help combat it.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: One World/Ballantine (February 22, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345432134
• ISBN-13: 978-0345432131
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #160,986 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #19 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Postpartum Depression

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It is transforming my life, January 17, 2000

By 

The Duchess - See all my reviews

This review is from: Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman's Journey Through Depression (Paperback)

I read a review of this book in a magazine about two years ago and kept in stored in the back of my mind to read, mainly because it is titled after one of my favorite Billie Holliday songs, but also because it was the first book dealing with Black women and depression that I'd every seen. After a recent bout of depression, my therapist loaned me the book from the counseling center's library. Too depressed to do the hundred other things that were begging to be done after that session, I started reading the book, finishing it in about a day because I just couldn't believe that there was someone else out there who was hurting the way I was for as long as I had been. I had to know how it all turned out for her.

The book gave me hope. Meri's story is very similar to mine (save the alcoholism and single parenthood). Her story gave me hope, answered my questions about the effectiveness of drug therapy, and showed me that while depression can be a chronic illness, it is not untreatable if one has courage and faith. I have been working a lot with some of the suggestions that she made in the book and have had a marked improvement in many areas of my life. I feel truly blessed to have read that book and I am grateful that Meri was humble enough to share her story with all of us sisters who have suffered in shame and silence. God bless her; God bless us.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I felt like I was reading my own life story!, May 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman's Journey Through Depression (Paperback)

I have been suffering from depression for longer than I care to admit. I grew up with a depressed mother who never sought help. I am about the same age as the author and have experienced many of the same things she has been through. I am still struggling with therapy, medications and trying to adjust to being a newly divorced single mom of a very sick little girl. I love to read and this is the first book I have read in a long time that I can truly relate to and find some hope for my future. I am so happy to know that I am not alone. I will try not to feel so guilty that I am not the strong black women that society has told me I need to be. This book has taught me that I am strong; strong enough to deal with this condition and keep moving forward.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Willow Weep for Me, March 25, 2000

By 

Janell Moore - See all my reviews

This review is from: Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman's Journey Through Depression (Hardcover)

Upon reading the first pages, I wanted to know where was the person who was mirroring my life. Our struggles have ran so parallel that if Meri were to hear my story, I am sure she would feel as if I had been living her life. I can't begin to share with anyone the horror of living with this dreadful disease, however Meri said it like I haven't heard or read anywhere before. The strength that she found to write this memoir is very characteristic of us, individuals who suffer with depression. We can often go deep inside and find the resources to rise to any occasion and muster up the will to live. We, then, are able to do things that others, who don't live day to day with this debilitating illness, can't or won't do. Yet they do not live with such a disease that robs you of your self esteem and movitation that others take for granted. I have often been envious of those who appear so**normal**. Meri, my sister, you have done us "proud". You have my humblest admiration and prayers that your life will be more than we can imagine.