Description
Book SynopsisWITH A NEW EPILOGUE BY THE AUTHOR
Like Primo Levi's The Periodic Table, The Noonday Demon digs deep into personal history, as Andrew Solomon narrates, brilliantly and terrifyingly, his own agonising experience of depression.
Solomon also portrays the pain of others, in different cultures and societies whose lives have been shattered by depression and uncovers the historical, social, biological, chemical and medical implications of this crippling disease. He takes us through the halls of mental hospitals where some of his subjects have been imprisoned for decades; into the research labs; to the burdened and afflicted poor, rural and urban. He talks to faith healers and voyages around the world in a quest for folk wisdom. He analyses the medications of today as well as reviewing the politics of diagnosis and treatment and, perhaps most significantly, he looks at the vital role of will and love in the process of recovery.
**ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY**
Trade ReviewThe best book ever on depression. Andrew Solomon explains everything with a sharp, scientific clarity. -- William Leith * Evening Standard *
The history, treatment and even politics of depression are thoroughly covered… Solomon’s brutal honesty makes this the best account of depression I have ever read. -- Chris Nancollas * Tablet *
A mesmerising journey... magnificent * Observer *
Extraordinary and redeeming... A work of great charm and individuality but also of impressive scholarship * Evening Standard *
A lodestone work * Guardian *
