Two depression memoirs aimed at different readerships both offer optimism and enlightenment
When the novelist William Styron wrote a piece for Vanity Fair in 1989 describing his battle with depression, he could hardly have known that he was pioneering a new genre. He expanded the essay into a book, Darkness Visible, the first modern example of a now burgeoning literary form, the depression memoir. Styron’s candour helped to break down some of the stigma around the condition, and in the 25 years since it was published, such personal memoirs have become almost commonplace, particularly among writers and journalists (myself included). The fact that so many personal accounts continue to be published is testament to the way these stories have made it easier to discuss an illness that is still too often regarded as shameful or somehow less than valid.
Jay Griffiths is an impossible writer to categorise; her books are part cultural histories, part travelogues, exploring such abstract concepts as time, wildness and childhood. Her remarkable 2007 book, Wild, begins with a description of how drinking ayahuasca with a Peruvian shaman drew her out of a persistent bout of depression.
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