This work is a personal testimony from Kay Redfield Jamison: the revelation of her struggle with manic depression since adolescence, and how it has shaped her life. The book follows her through college, a love affair, her battle with the illness, bouts of madness, violence and attempted suicide.

Contains material about the trial of German Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann.

In the summer of 1939, five-year-old Jacques Austerlitz is sent to England on one of the Kindertransports and placed with foster parents in Wales. For reasons of their own, the childless Calvinist couple erase from the boy all knowledge of his identity.

An account, both harrowing and amusing, of the author's dependence on Prozac, prescribed for her after a series of suicide attempts and breakdowns. She describes her experiences and her determination to get herself off medication.

A description of the author's devastating descent into depression, this book is an intimate portrait of the agony of Styron's ordeal. It looks at an illness that affects millions but is still widely misunderstood. Styron reveals the anguish of a mind desperate unto death.