The Noonday Demon (108 page)
Authors: Andrew Solomon
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In late December of 1999, a friend found me in high spirits and asked what I was doing. I replied enthusiastically that I had just been given an appointment at a mental hospital in rural Poland for New Year’s Eve and that I’d also found some suicide notes I’d feared were lost. She shook her head gravely and told me that this madness had to stop. It is with some considerable relief that I find my book complete. The madness has been arrested.
My agent, Andrew Wylie, has stood by me now for twelve years. He took me on before I had ever published a book and has guided all my adult efforts. He has been an unflagging partisan for me and for this work; I cherish his friendship and his discernment. I am also grateful to Liza Walworth, at the Wylie Agency, who made the beginning of all this so pleasurable, and to Jeff Posternak, who gracefully facilitated all the later arrangements. Nan Graham, my brilliant editor in the United States, has been consistently generous and wise and has worked entirely in concert with me; she has been the kind of radiant enthusiast I always hoped to find. Brant Rumble, her able assistant, has kept the idea of order alive in the face of chaos. Alison Samuel, my editor in the United Kingdom, has been a fantastically good reader and a staunch adherent. I am grateful to Pat Eisemann for her excellent and energetic leadership of the American publicity team, and to Giulia Melucci, Beth Wareham, and the others who have seen through the book’s promotion, as well as Patrick Hargadon for his work on UK publicity. I also thank Christopher Hayes for coodinating the Internet component of
The Noonday Demon
’s public relations. I would also like to thank my lawyer, Chuck Googe, for his close attention to my contracts.
Portions of this book have previously appeared in
The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine,
and
Food and Wine.
I owe thanks to Tina Brown for publishing “An Anatomy of Depression” in
The New Yorker
in 1998. My greatest real debt at that magazine is to my editor, Henry Finder. No one else in the world possesses his gentle tact, erudition, prudence, and loyalty. I would never have started on this difficult topic had I not been sure of his liberal forbearance. A smaller section of the book appeared in
The New York Times Magazine.
Jack Rosenthal gave me an invaluable base at the
Times,
and Adam Moss supported my protracted work on depression, poverty, and politics, helping me to pinpoint the truth behind diffuse anecdotes. Diane Cardwell also helped me as she edited that material. Dana Cowin, in the name of
Food and Wine,
sent me off at key times for the most pleasurable of the many cures I explored, and I thank her for her indulgence. Stephen Rossoff kindly invited me to pursue my research at the University of Michigan for
The University of Michigan Alumni Magazine.
I wrote the opening parts of this book during a stay at the Villa dei Pini of the Bogliasco Foundation in Liguria in February 1998. I appreciate deeply the foundation’s generous support.
For their assistance with my work on Cambodia, I thank Laurie Beckelman, Fred Frumberg, Bernard Krishna, and John Stubbs. For their assistance with my work on Greenland, I thank in particular René Birger Christiansen and Lisbet Lyager, as well as Flemming Nicolaisen, Johanne Olson, and the people of Illiminaq. I am also grateful for the assistance of Erik Sprunk-Janssen and Hanne Skoldager-Ravn, without whom I would have been unable to begin my Greenland project. For their assistance with my work in Senegal, I thank David Hecht and Hélène Saivet, whose efforts on my behalf went way, way beyond the call of duty or friendship. I am grateful to Anne Applebaum and Radek Sikorski for making arrangements on my behalf in Poland. I am indebted to Enrico Marone-Cinzano for helping me substantially with research for
chapter 6
.
Both friends and professionals in the field have taken time to comment on drafts of this book. For their truly extraordinary editing, I would like to thank my two closest readers: Dr. Katherine Keenum and Dr. Claudia Swan. Their extraordinary attentiveness was both uplifting and invaluable, and their insights and love allowed me to achieve some semblance of clarity in both my own thought and the expression of that thought. I am also grateful to those who read and commented on late versions of the manuscript: Dr. Dorothy Arnsten, Sarah Billinghurst, Mary Bisbee-Beek, Christian Caryl, Dana Cowin, Jennie Dunham, Dr. Richard A. Friedman, Dr. Richard C. Friedman, Dr. Rhonda K. Garelick, Dr. David Grand, John G. Hart, Dr. Steven Hyman, Eve Kahn, Fran Kiernan, Betsy Joly de Lotbinière, Sue Macartney-Snape, Dr. David McDowell, Alexandra Munroe, Dr. Randolph M. Nesse, Dr. Julie S. Peters, Margaret Robbins, Dr. Peter Sillem, Amanda Smithson, David Solomon, Howard Solomon, Bob Weil, Edward Winstead, and Helen Whitney.
I would like to thank Philippe de Montebello, Emily Rafferty, and Harold Holzer for their remarkable support of this project and their great generosity in giving me full access to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
I would like to thank Chuck Close for his generosity in volunteering to take my author’s photograph.
I am indebted to Eugene Cory, Carol Czarnecki, and Brave New Words for transcribing more than ten thousand pages of taped interviews. I appreciate the assistance of Fred Courtwright in arranging permissions for material quoted in this book. Emma Lukic was tireless at hunting down references and I appreciate her assistance with research.
I am grateful to the many professionals who took time to share their insights with me as I began my work on this project. Dr. Frederick Eberstadt spent a great deal of time with me and facilitated numerous introductions. Dr. Steven Hyman of the NIMH made himself and his staff wonderfully available. Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison gave me advice on early research and graciously invited me to her suicide conference in 1996. Dr. David McDowell was similarly generous and also guided me through the mysteries of the American Psychiatric Association—an invaluable service. Sally Mink of the Depression & Related Affective Disorders Association at Johns Hopkins Hospital was unfailingly generous with her numerous connections and her personal insight. Dr. Randolph Nesse first drew me into the field of evolutionary psychology and thereby had a profound influence on my project. Dr. Anne Stanwix provided lucid wisdom and offered many of the epigrams that I have incorporated here. Dr. Peter Whybrow was very generous in pointing me toward many of the general questions I address in this book.
It will be evident to any reader of this text how many others gave me of their time. It is not possible to list everyone whose ideas and views have been incorporated into my own, but I would particularly like to acknowledge those with whom I met in person to conduct extended taped interviews: Dr. Dorothy Arnsten, Dr. James Ballenger, Dr. Richard Baron, Agata Bielik-Robson, Dr. Poul Bisgaard, Dr. George Brown, Deborah Bullwinkle, Dr. René Birger Christiansen, Dr. Deborah Christie, Dr. Joyce Chung, Dr. Miroslaw Dabkowski, Hailey Dart, Dr. Richard Davidson, Dr. J. Raymond DePaulo, Senator Pete Domenici, Vicki Edgson, Laurie Flynn, Dr. Ellen Frank, Dr. Richard A. Friedman, Dr. Edward Gardener, Dr. David Grand, Dr. John Greden, Dr. Anna Halberstadt, Dr. Emily Hauenstein, Dr. M. Jabkowski, Dr. Mieczylsaw Janiszewski, Karen Johnson, Dr. Paramjit T. Joshi, Representative Marcy Kaptur, Dr. Herb Kleber, Dr. Don Klein, Gladys Kreutzman, Marian Kyner, Dr. Bob Levin, Dr. Reinhard Lier, Dr. Juan López, Sara Lynge, Dr. John Mann, Dr. Melvin McGuiness, Dr. Henry McCurtiss, Dr. Jeanne Miranda, Dr. William Normand, Phaly Nuon, Kristen Peilman, Representative John Porter, Dr. Robert Post, Dr. William Potter, Senator Harry Reid, Dr. Norman Rosenthal, Representative Marge Roukema, Dr. Arnold Sameroff, Senator Chuck Schumer, Dr. Sylvia Simpson, Dr. Colin Stine, Dr. Glenn Treismann, Dr. Elliot Valenstein, Dr. James D. Watson, Dr. Thomas Wehr, Senator Paul Wellstone, Dr. Myrna Weissman, Representative Bob Wise, and Dr. Elizabeth Young.
So many people opened up to me and told me their difficult stories as I worked in this book, and I enjoyed their confidence and have come to enjoy the friendship of many of them. No other enterprise in my life has been so sad, but no other one has so entirely convinced me that communication is possible and that the world is a place of intimacies. Tremendous thanks must go to the subjects who allowed me to tell their stories in this book: Laura Anderson, Janet Benshoof, Robert Boorstin, Brian D’Amato, Walt Devine, Sarah Gold, Ruth Ann Janesson, Amalia Joelson, Karen Johansen, Eve Kahn, Amelia Lange, Carlita Lewis, Betsy de Lotbinière, Martha Manning, Paul Bailey Mason, Theresa Morgan, Dièry Prudent, Lynn Rivers, Maggie Robbins, Joe Rogers, Joel P. Smith, Tina Sonego, Angel Starkey, Mark Weiss, and the people I have called Sheila Hernandez, Frank Rusakoff, Bill Stein, Danquille Stetson, Lolly Washington, Claudia Weaver, and Fred Wilson. These men and women and numerous others magnanimously narrated their difficult stories for me; I only hope that I have been a sufficient conduit for all their courage.
Since this is a book about depression, I also thank the people without whom I would not have recovered far enough to write my story. I am grateful to the many doctors from whom I have received treatment for depression. I feel very fortunate to have had my mind in such capable hands. The doctors’ work was complemented by the generosity of friends whom I will not catalog, but who know themselves to have created ways for me to stay alive. My formulary for depression would include, at the very top, such love as these many people have shown me; they are true and good to the core, and their gentle advice and empathetic good sense and rational control defined the space within which I could safely be crazy. I thank Juan and Amalia Fernandez, whose loving care and attention through the period of writing freed me to compose what I would.
I had never employed a research assistant until I started work on this book. I was wildly fortunate to find the gifted artist Stephen Bitterolf, who has taken hundreds of hours away from his canvases and has worked on
The Noonday Demon
as hard as I have. Whatever rigor I have achieved here would not have been possible without his rigor; and many of my ideas were formed by ideas of his. This book could not exist in anything like its current form without his contribution. Furthermore, he has shown himself to be a man of character; his wit, affection, and kindness have been a source of constant pleasure to me.
My father was sixty-seven when I had my first episode of depression. He is to be praised not only for his love and generosity, but also for the flexibility of mind and spirit that has consistently allowed him to understand and arrest my illness over these last six years. I have never known anyone who so beautifully integrates the imaginative vitality of youth with the considered wisdom of age. He has been, always, my unfailing mainstay and my great inspiration. I have dedicated this book to him with all my heart.
Page numbers from
445
to
499
refer to notes.
AA (Alcoholics Anonymous),
228
,
240
,
241
,
365
Abrams, Richard,
122
abyss imagery,
27
–28
acetylcholine:
initial isolation of,
331
in sleep,
145
tricyclic inhibition of,
117
–18