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Shop nowThis Close to Happy
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Learn moreA gifted and audacious writer confronts her lifelong battle with depression and her search for release
This Close to Happy is the rare, vividly personal account of what it feels like to suffer from clinical depression, written from a woman’s perspective and informed by an acute understanding of the implications of this disease over a lifetime.
Taking off from essays on depression she has written for the New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine, Daphne Merkin casts her eye back to her beginnings to try to sort out the root causes of her affliction. She recounts the travails of growing up in a large, affluent family where there was a paucity of love and basics such as food and clothing despite the presence of a chauffeur and a cook. She goes on to recount her early hospitalization for depression in poignant detail, as well as her complex relationship with her mercurial, withholding mother.
Along the way Merkin also discusses her early, redemptive love of reading and gradual emergence as a writer. She eventually marries, has a child, and suffers severe postpartum depression, for which she is again hospitalized. Merkin also discusses her visits to various therapists and psychopharmocologists, which enables her to probe the causes of depression and its various treatments. The book ends in the present, where the writer has learned how to navigate her depression, if not “cure” it, after a third hospitalization in the wake of her mother’s death.
Daphne Merkin, a former staff writer for the New Yorker, is a regular contributor to Elle. Her writing frequently appears in the New York Times, Bookforum, Departures, Travel & Leisure, W, Vogue, and other publications. Merkin has taught writing at the 92nd Street Y, Marymount, and Hunter College. She lives in New York City.
Suzanne Toren, award-winning narrator, has over thirty years of experience in narration. She was named a “Golden Voice” by AudioFile magazine in 2019. She has won the American Foundation for the Blind’s Scourby Award for Narrator of the Year, AudioFile magazine named her the 2009 Best Voice in Nonfiction & Culture, and she is the recipient of multiple Earphones Awards. She performs on and off Broadway and in regional theaters and has appeared on Law & Order and in various soap operas.
Reviews
“Unlike so much writing about mental illness, Merkin’s memoir isn’t prescriptive or bogged down with statistics; it’s a cleareyed, insightful account of how she felt during her nosedives into despair. The book is shot through with a self-awareness that helps readers cheer her on.”
“[Merkin] narrates…with insight, grace, and excruciating clarity, in exquisite and sometimes darkly humorous prose…for all its highly personal focus, it is an important addition to the literature of mental illness.”
“Illuminating, heartbreaking, and powerfully written…Merkin eloquently blends the personal with the researched; her intellectual tenacity and emotional rawness impress.”
“Dark thoughts hover over virtually every page of this mesmerizing memoir, and yet there is also the very real possibility of hope.”
“Extraordinarily lucid and moving…This is a book for all those who know nothing about depression and for those who know too much.”
“Brings a stunningly perceptive voice to the forefront of the conversation about depression, one that is both reassuring and revelatory.”
“This Close to Happy is honest, fearless in the way we have come to expect from Daphne Merkin, and, as a bonus, frankly informative.”
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