Darkness Visible

October is National Depression Awareness Month. If you are interested in reviewing or featuring Darkness Visible during October 2011, please contact the publisher for supplemental materials, including a reading group guide and a video featuring Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison speaking about William Styron and depression.

In the summer of 1985, William Styron became numbed by disaffection, apathy, and despair, unable to speak or walk while caught in the grip of advanced depression. His struggle with the disease culminated in a wave of obsession that nearly drove him to suicide, leading him to seek hospitalization before the dark tide engulfed him.

Darkness Visible tells the story of Styron's recovery, laying bare the harrowing realities of clinical depression and chronicling his triumph over the disease that had claimed so many great writers before him. His final words are a call for hope to all who suffer from mental illness that it is possible to emerge from even the deepest abyss of despair and "once again behold the stars."

This ebook features a new illustrated biography of William Styron, including original letters,rare photos, and never-before-seen documents from the Styron family andthe Duke University Archives.

William Styron (1925-2006), born in Newport News, Virginia, was one of the greatest American writers of his generation. Styron published his first book, Lie Down in Darkness, at age twenty-six and went on to write such influential works as the controversial and Pulitzer Prize-winning The Confessions of Nat Turner and the international bestseller Sophie's Choice.