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Summary: Madness???? A bit misleading.
Review: While the title of the book is somewhat misleading (depression is NOT madness) this book should be required reading for any health care professionals or counsellors that treat people with depression. Styron accurately and vividly details the slippery slope of depression. I wish he had emphasised more on how long it took to climb back up out of the "black hole." His description of the symptoms of depression are accurate and scary. This I know from personal experience.
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Summary: Wonderful account, and accurate
Review: I was pleased when I finally finished this book. It was suggested to me after my brother took his own life, and I finished it a year after his death, when I was afflicted with depression, as a post traumaitc episode, repressed, from the effects of his death.It does give you insight into the feeling one has when deeply depressed, some information, and the reality that YOU can move through depression; you might need reminders however, when going through an episode, but there is light through and after the darkness.
Rating: 
Summary: Well written description of depression but not complete
Review: William Styron gives an accurate and compelling description of his personal bout with depression, which should prove interesting both to readers who have and have not suffered from serious depression. I use the term depression, which is judged to be pathological, as opposed to grief or sadness, which comes to all of us occasionally.However the reader must be aware that William Styron's illness is not a complete description of depression. Mr. Styron mentions towards the end of the book when he is approaching his lowest point, that his wife invited guest over for dinner. He didn't care one way or the other if they came and he had dinner with them or not. Others who have been severely depressed would definitely not be indifferent. They would not want to see anyone and frequently try to isolate themselves and see their presence as a tremendous burden for others. William Styron luckily had a wife, family, and friends that were understanding and supportive. He had access to professional help and was thankfully able to eventually return from the darkness. His type of depression came on suddenly and left suddenly. Others suffer depression their whole lives. Their lives, from child hood, are not normal, they are unable to make friends, they are unable to keep jobs, unable to establish a family, etc. These persons continue to descend into depression and have no happy family or successful career to return to. I think the reader should be aware that, as bad as Mr. Styron's description is, he actually had a better prognosis than many others suffering from mental illness. In conclusion this is an interesting book and I appreciate Mr. Styron's sharing his experiences with the public. He does offer hope to many suffers of depression as well as appeal to the general public for understanding
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Summary: William Styron's personal story=right on mark!! 5++++
Review: with all of the "self-help" and "how-to" books out there on major clinical depression, this one, to me, was in a category all its own. i have seen and read several of the other books about depression - just trying to find some connection. i felt no connection because i believe several were written by people never having to deal with this disabling disease. i would read "darkness visable" and think "hey i feel like that too sometimes, i am not the only one out there that does". i felt it,(the book), explained how "i" felt (w/depression) so accurate that over the years i have purchased several copies and have givin them to family and friends i know, and told them "ok THIS is how i feel". for friends of mine who also had depression problems i would buy them the book, tell them to read it, and get back to me because i wanted to know what they thought. sure enough, they felt the same way or very close to the same way i did. it was like a burden lifted off of all of our shoulders. i don't want to get into the book because everyone should read it that battles depression or someone who is trying to understand someone who is battling depression. i can't begin to tell you, it was the start in understanding who i was, accepting myself, and trying not to feel shame about about something i was born with. if i could ever help someone i would do my best. this book changed my life and i read it 10 years or more ago. :) :) thanks W.S.
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Summary: Perfection
Review: Upon a second reading aproximately 9 years after my first, there is no doubt in my mind that William Styron's book is the foremost literary work on depression in existence. William Styron is indisputably a literary genius. That he so perfectly expresses the inexpressable is mind-boggling. That he is being treated yet again for depression, is disheartening, but that he is still alive, encouraging. Anyone who believes this work does not depict depression in the most superior and eloquent way, has never truly experienced clinical depression in its darkest form and/or has no appreciation of exquisite writing.
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Summary: Mental illness as literature
Review: In the mid '80s William Styron developed severe depression and lived to tell about it; the result is this very readable memoir. Styron's book is better written than almost any other autobiographical account on the subject you're likely to find, and I strongly disagree with all the complaints that the book is (1) self-serving, (2) stilted, or (3) shallow. Stryon is hardly the first to point out that writers are far more likely than Joe Average to contract severe depression, that some of the very greatest authors have suffered from this disease; and in doing so here I doubt that he's trying to impress the Nobel Committee. Nor can I fault him for failing to explain conclusively what triggered his malady. I've gone through one major depressive episode, which I have explained to myself a hundred different ways without settling on a hard-and-fast answer. Styron does as well as one could reasonably expect. He's lucid, articulate, and occasionally (I'm thinking of his episode with Art Therapy) funny. At under 100 pages, "Darkness Visible" has plenty to offer for what little time it demands from readers.
Rating:
Summary: Forever Grateful
Review: Ever since I first read DARKNESS VISIBLE ten years, after my second hospitalization for depression, I have tried to write to William Styron to thank him for putting my life and confusion into words. While depression is still returns from time to time, I never have felt as alone as I did before I read this book. The book was also helpful in educating people about mental illness. When a famous and respected person, like William Styron, has the courage to write about his own battle with depression, a subject that is often seen as self-indungence and discussed in hushed tones, he gives credence to the condition's being a disease, not a lack of self-control. Depression is less of a stigma than it was 10 years ago and part of that change is due to William Styron and DARKNESS VISIBLE
Rating: 
Summary: mildly interesting
Review: To a liberal, life is a tragedy; to a conservative, a comedy -An Accurate Aphorism William Styron suffered a clinical depression in 1985, after he ended 40 years of alcohol abuse. He subsequently turned that experience into a lecture, a Vanity Fair article and this extremely slight (84 pages) memoir. The process of explaining his mental illness seems to have rendered him schizophrenic, if he was not already. When I reviewed Sophie's Choice (see Orrin's review; Grade: C), I noted, without knowing of his depression, that Styron seemed to have some psychological problems. I based my belief on his decision to write his novels from non-white, female or other ethnic perspectives; he seemed like a man who was so profoundly uncomfortable with himself and consumed by White Liberal guilt, as to be unbalanced. It can hardly have come as a surprise to anyone that he descended into a nearly suicidal spiral of depression. But, lo and behold, it surprised him and this is symptomatic of the problems with the book. On the one hand, Styron seems to want to bare his soul and win our sympathy for others like him, but on the other hand he is so dishonest and/or obtuse, that he offers little of value to his audience. I'll just point out two other areas where his analysis fails the reader. He labors mightily to exonerate the depressed from moral judgment and portray them as mere victims of an organic condition, but as he notes, the chemical changes in the brain that exacerbate depression are preceded by some prior, purely psychological, condition--stress, guilt, what have you. Now, I do not mean to suggest that susceptibility to Depression is necessarily indicative of moral weakness, surely we can all understand and sympathize with the bereaved parent or spouse who falls prey to depression after losing a child or partner. But I am suggesting that in many cases, the mindset and moral philosophy of the sufferer seems to be a contributing factor in the development of depression. This seems especially clear, and is annoyingly ignored, when Styron discusses the other famous sufferers of depression, most of whom committed suicide--Virginia Woolf, Albert Camus, Sylvia Plath, etc. It escapes his notice that these are all figures of the Left, plagued by the same tormented liberal guilt as he. The two friends and fellow victims who he discusses are Art Buchwald and Mike Wallace; the three of them have moped through the past forty years, attacking their country, their society and the inequities they perceive. Of course, they are depressed, they hate themselves and the world they live in. Significantly, the two great conservative sufferers, Churchill and Lincoln, both great believers in the ultimate goodness of man and democracy and their countries, were able to overcome their black moods without psychiatry or pharmacology. It seems logical to suppose that the group of catterwauling suicidal wretches that Styron associates himself with are predisposed to self-destructive depression by their political pessimism and moral anxiety, but this issue is not addressed, so we'll leave it for another day. This is a mildly interesting trifle about a unique manifestation of depression. It in no way belongs on this list. GRADE: C
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Summary: "Yet trouble came."
Review: Natalie Goldberg's discussion of this book in her THUNDER AND LIGHTNING (2000) prompted me to read it for myself. William Styron is perhaps best known for writing SOPHIE'S CHOICE. Styron knows suffering. "I recall saying to myself that when I left Paris for New York the next morning it would be a matter of forever" (p. 4), he begins this short, autobiographical account of his 1985 encounter with depression that pushed him toward suicide. "The pain of severe depression," he explains, "is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it, and it kills in many instances because its anguish can no longer be borne. The prevention of many suicides will continue to be hindered until there is a general awareness of the nature of this pain" (p. 33). By reflecting upon his own dark descent into depression, Styron offers us a better understanding of his subject. Perhaps his eventual recovery also provides a ray of comfort to those readers struggling with depression. The illness, we learn, affects millions. One in ten Americans will experience depression (p. 35). It strikes all ages, races, creeds, and classes indiscriminately, but women are at a higher risk (p. 35). Randall Jarrell, Hart Crane, van Gogh, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Camus, Jack London, Hemingway, Celan, and Anne Sexton were among the "fallen artists" who suffered from depression (pp. 35-36). This book (an 84-page essay, really), was written by someone who has been there, and should be considered a "must read" by anyone interested in the subject of severe depression. G. Merritt
Rating:
Summary: Valuable but a trifle irritating
Review: Darkness Visible is a useful book (a long magazine article really) for those who want an overview of the terrible illness depression. In describing his own bout with depression, the great novelist William Styron discusses the rhythm of this illness, its treatment, its effects, and pervasiveness, all useful to the lay person who wants to learn something fast about depression. For this service and its powerful prose, I heartily recommend this book. At the same time, I did find Styron a trifle smug, since he presents himself as superior to his doctors and their treatment and seems to know only famous people (beside himself) who suffer from this disease. I was happy for Styron's recovery but found the man's pomposity annoying.
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