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A review by dawndeydusk
Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by William Styron
5.0
I awoke this morning with a small sense of creeping dread. Nothing unfamiliar, just uninspiring. I picked this up on a whim from a pile of books to read--not even my pile, but originally my mother's. From the first few sentences, I knew that this book spoke to me and that it'd be a favorite--the first one in a while since I read Robert Goolrick's "The End of the World as We Know It."
I won't go into the details of my relationship with mental health here, but Styron's words cut to the bone: "...and there was a moment during my working hours in the late afternoon when a kind of panic and anxiety overtook me, just for a few minutes, accompanied by a visceral queasiness..." (42).
I adore this memoir. I admire its bluntness and its brevity, all the more adding to its significance. I thank my mom for picking it up and for it somehow ending up on my pile, similar to how I came around to read Goolrick's. When I read works like this, it gives me a sense that I might be regaining some of the moments I had and have missed. I'll be keeping this book in my pile, at least in the meanwhile.
I won't go into the details of my relationship with mental health here, but Styron's words cut to the bone: "...and there was a moment during my working hours in the late afternoon when a kind of panic and anxiety overtook me, just for a few minutes, accompanied by a visceral queasiness..." (42).
I adore this memoir. I admire its bluntness and its brevity, all the more adding to its significance. I thank my mom for picking it up and for it somehow ending up on my pile, similar to how I came around to read Goolrick's. When I read works like this, it gives me a sense that I might be regaining some of the moments I had and have missed. I'll be keeping this book in my pile, at least in the meanwhile.