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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Reflecting on a lifetime of chronic depression, Mays, the visual arts critic of Toronto's Globe and Mail, charts his illness with reasoned intelligence and emotional honesty. His chronicle, a bestseller in Canada, begins in the American South, where Mays grew up on a cotton plantation he remembers for its physical beauty and sullen silences. When he was seven, his alcoholic father died (perhaps by murder). He and his mother moved to a nearby city to which he was unable to adjust. Five years later, Mays's mother succumbed to lung cancer. He recalls not weeping, and acknowledges the self-annihilation manifest in his inability to express griefAindeed, suicide beckoned as a sweet possibility. He went to live with his paternal grandparents and was later, in high school, voted most likely to succeed. Mays pursued English studies in college and graduate school, aiming for a career as a scholar, imagining he could sustain himself in a world from which he felt increasingly estranged. In 1968, he attempted to kill himself while he was in a doctoral program, leading to his hospitalization and the first of two courses of therapyAwhich have enabled him to achieve periods of normality, though the dogs of depression always lurk. A strong religious faith, a solid marriage and his writing career have provided Mays with further emotional support. Though his prose can be so elliptical that some important events and figures (including his wife and step-daughter) slip through the gaps, implicit in Mays's story, as in William Styron's Darkness Visible, is his enduring courage in the face of unrelenting mental illness. (July)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
First-person accounts of depression have become a cottage industry, with best sellers such as Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind (LJ 10/1/95), celebrity tell-alls like Patty Duke's Call Me Anna (1987), and serious literature like William Styron's Darkness Visible (LJ 8/90). Mays's entry in this crowded field is justified for two reasons. First, it is a fine literary effort, a best seller in Canada, where it was first published in 1995. Second, Mays is by no means curedAdespite years of psychotherapy and treatment with Prozac, he is still chronically depressed. This account is a good corrective to the many accountsAincluding those aboveAwritten after depression had lifted or been tamed by treatment. This is not an easy book to read. It offers no happy ending and conveys an all-too-vivid picture of enervation and self-loathing. Nonetheless, it is recommended for public libraries serving the many individuals who have friends or relatives battling depression and for academic libraries serving training programs in clinical psychology or psychiatry.
-AMary Ann Hughes, Neill P.L., Pullman, WA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
Reflecting on a lifetime of chronic depression, Mays, the visual arts critic of Toronto's Globe and Mail, charts his illness with reasoned intelligence and emotional honesty. His chronicle, a bestseller in Canada, begins in the American South, where Mays grew up on a cotton plantation he remembers for its physical beauty and sullen silences. When he was seven, his alcoholic father died (perhaps by murder). He and his mother moved to a nearby city to which he was unable to adjust. Five years later, Mays's mother succumbed to lung cancer. He recalls not weeping, and acknowledges the self-annihilation manifest in his inability to express griefAindeed, suicide beckoned as a sweet possibility. He went to live with his paternal grandparents and was later, in high school, voted most likely to succeed. Mays pursued English studies in college and graduate school, aiming for a career as a scholar, imagining he could sustain himself in a world from which he felt increasingly estranged. In 1968, he attempted to kill himself while he was in a doctoral program, leading to his hospitalization and the first of two courses of therapyAwhich have enabled him to achieve periods of normality, though the dogs of depression always lurk. A strong religious faith, a solid marriage and his writing career have provided Mays with further emotional support. Though his prose can be so elliptical that some important events and figures (including his wife and step-daughter) slip through the gaps, implicit in Mays's story, as in William Styron's Darkness Visible, is his enduring courage in the face of unrelenting mental illness. (July)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
First-person accounts of depression have become a cottage industry, with best sellers such as Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind (LJ 10/1/95), celebrity tell-alls like Patty Duke's Call Me Anna (1987), and serious literature like William Styron's Darkness Visible (LJ 8/90). Mays's entry in this crowded field is justified for two reasons. First, it is a fine literary effort, a best seller in Canada, where it was first published in 1995. Second, Mays is by no means curedAdespite years of psychotherapy and treatment with Prozac, he is still chronically depressed. This account is a good corrective to the many accountsAincluding those aboveAwritten after depression had lifted or been tamed by treatment. This is not an easy book to read. It offers no happy ending and conveys an all-too-vivid picture of enervation and self-loathing. Nonetheless, it is recommended for public libraries serving the many individuals who have friends or relatives battling depression and for academic libraries serving training programs in clinical psychology or psychiatry.
-AMary Ann Hughes, Neill P.L., Pullman, WA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
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Citations
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3
books
cite this book:
- Impulsivity: Theory, Assessment, and Treatment by Christopher D. Webster on page 359
- Ceramic Millennium by Clement Greenberg on page 386
- A Philosophical Disease: Bioethics, Culture, and Identity (Reflective Bioethics) by Carl Elliott in Back Matter
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