Noonday Demon, The: An Atlas of Depression (Andrew Solomon)

In The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression (2001), author Andrew Solomon examines clinical depression in the context of science and medicine, culture, and his personal experience. The Noonday Demon is a highly regarded account of depression, for which Solomon received a National Book Award and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

The origin of the book was an article Solomon wrote about depression that was published in The New Yorker in 1998. The article drew an immense reader response and led Solomon to write The Noonday Demon.

Although Solomon includes clinical information, The Noonday Demon is an extremely personal account of his own struggles with depression. He seems to lay himself bare in recounting his thoughts and actions, particularly when his depression seemed to hold him in ...