Book Review: This Close to Happy

In the category of memoirs about depression, there are some distinguished contributions. They include, for example, Kay Redfield Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind, William Styron’s Darkness Visible, and Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted. Daphne Merkin knows these books well, but as someone who has dealt with serious depression her entire life, she finds them lacking. “It seems to me that these characterizations tend to bracket the episodes of breakdown or incapacitating depression within unimpeachable demonstrations of the writer’s otherwise hyperfunctioning existence,” writes Merkin. With This Close to Happy, Merkin wanted to do something different, to “describe what it feels like to suffer from clinical depression from the inside, in a way that I hope will speak to both the sufferers and the onlookers to that suffering, whether friends or family.” She succeeds at this brilliantly. To people who have similarly experienced deep depression, not as a bracketed section of their lives but as an enduring theme, the beautifully written This Close to Happy is a gift. To those who would blithely tell people who are seriously depressed to just snap out of it, or look on the bright side, This Close to Happy is a wake-up call. Daphne Merkin could have arranged the pieces of her life into one of those “unimpeachable demonstrations of the writer’s otherwise hyperfunctioning existence.” She has ascended the heights of literary acclaim, having written as a staff writer fo...
Source: Psych Central - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Antidepressants Book Reviews Depression Finding Happiness this close to happy Source Type: news