This is a story of depression a condition that reduced William Styron from a person enjoying life & success as an acclaimed writer to a man engulfed & menaced by mental anguish With profound insight & remarkable candor Styron tracks the progress of his madness from the smothering misery & exhaustion to the agony of composing his own suicide note & his eventual hard-won recovery Illuminating an illness that affects millions but which remains widely misunderstood this book is about the darkness of depression but it is also ultimately about survival & redemption