Like Primo Levi's The Periodic Table The Noonday Demon digs deep into personal history as Andrew Solomon narrates brilliantly & terrifyingly his own agonising experience of depression. Solomon also portrays the pain of others in different cultures & societies whose lives have been shattered by depression & uncovers the historical social biological chemical & 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 & afflicted poor rural & urban. He talks to faith healers & voyages around the world in a quest for folk wisdom. He analyses the medications of today as well as reviewing the politics of diagnosis & treatment & perhaps most significantly he looks at the vital role of will & love in the process of recovery.