This slim text, only 84 pages in the paperback Picador edition, is an eloquent description by an American novelist of his experience of depression in 1985-6, and his subsequent gradual emergence from the darkness. The account of the ‘storm’ that brought William Styron into an acute psychiatric ward in December 1985 was first published in 1989, first as a lecture and then as an article in Vanity Fair. In part he seems to be responding to recent public reactions to suicides, among others that of Primo Levi, novelist and survivor of Auschwitz, in 1987. As someone who got to the brink of suicide Styron apparently wants to counter the unsympathetic and judgemental approach to suicides, an approach characterised, he feels, by a lack of understanding of the anguish and pain felt by people with severe depression. He proceeds to describe, perhaps as well as anyone has, the symptoms of depressive illness, his anxiety, hypochondria, agitation, dread, loss of self-esteem, and lonely blackness. Physical symptoms accompanied the mental ones, including lack of coordination, loss of voice volume, slowness of movement, fatigue, and disruption of sleep.
The sign to him that he was serious about suicide was the irrevocable disposal of his private journal. Only hearing a piece of music by Brahms which had deep significance for him brought him to wake his wife and get help. The support of his wife, Rose, and of a manic-depressive friend who rang him every day during Styron’s stay in hospital, is clearly crucial to his recovery – as was the space from external worry afforded by the hospital admission.
In addition to the 1989 account of the crisis, the 1991 book includes a graphic description of the period of Styron’s decline over the summer, during a trip to Europe and Paris. It gives some examples of uncharacteristic behaviour, insignificant in themselves, and scarcely noticeable by strangers, which were cumulatively important indicators of the decline he was experiencing.
There are some similarities between the experiences of depression recounted by Gwyneth Lewis and William Styron. For example, a sudden intolerance to alcohol contributes to the change in mood. But whereas Lewis sees depression as a product of inconsistencies in her way of life that need to be addressed, Styron feels that there is a strong element of unacknowledged loss or incomplete mourning in the factors causing his depression. Indeed, he could remember his late mother singing the Brahms Alto Rhapsody that interrupted his steps to suicide.
This is a beautifully written book about depressive illness, which does not offer false hope about treatments, pharmacological or psychotherapeutic. It does however point up how common this condition is, with many examples, and expresses a quiet joy at the writer’s return to see the starlight.
A classic account of depression, from a time when the stigma about suicide and mental ill-health was even greater than it is today.
William Styron (1991) Darkness Visible, London, Picador