Product Description

From the author of the best-selling memoir An Unquiet Mind, comes the first major book in a quarter century on suicide, and its terrible pull on the young in particular. Night Falls Fast is tragically timely: suicide has become one of the most common killers of Americans between the ages of fifteen and forty-five.

An internationally acknowledged authority on depressive illnesses, Dr. Jamison has also known suicide firsthand: after years of struggling with manic-depression, she tried at age twenty-eight to kill herself. Weaving together a historical and scientific exploration of the subject with personal essays on individual suicides, she brings not only her remarkable compassion and literary skill but also all of her knowledge and research to bear on this devastating problem. This is a book that helps us to understand the suicidal mind, to recognize and come to the aid of those at risk, and to comprehend the profound effects on those left behind. It is critical reading for parents, educators, and anyone wanting to understand this tragic epidemic.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25686 in Books
• Published on: 2000-10-10
• Released on: 2000-10-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Amazon.com
"Suicide is a particularly awful way to die: the mental suffering leading up to it is usually prolonged, intense, and unpalliated," writes Kay Redfield Jamison. "There is no morphine equivalent to ease the acute pain, and death not uncommonly is violent and grisly." Jamison has studied manic-depressive illness and suicide both professionally--and personally. She first planned her own suicide at 17; she attempted to carry it out at 28. Now professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, she explores the complex psychology of suicide, especially in people younger than 40: why it occurs, why it is one of our most significant health problems, and how it can be prevented. Jamison discusses manic-depression, suicide in different cultures and eras, suicide notes (they "promise more than they deliver"), methods, preventive treatments, and the devastating effects on loved ones. She explores what type of person commits suicide, and why, and when. She illustrates her points with detailed anecdotes about people who have attempted or committed suicide, some famous, some ordinary, many of them young. Not easy reading, either in subject or style, but you'll understand suicide better and be jolted by the intensity of depression that drives young people to it. --Joan Price

From Publishers Weekly
Providing historical, scientific and other helpful material on suicide, Jamison (An Unquiet Mind), a Johns Hopkins psychiatry professor, makes an excellent contribution to public understanding with this accessible and objective book. There is, she asserts, a suicide every 17 minutes in this country. Identifying suicide as an often preventable medical and social problem, Jamison focuses attention on those under 40 (suicides by those who are older often have different motivations or causes). Citing research that suicide is most common in individuals with mental illness (diagnosed or not), particularly depression and manic depression, she clearly describes the role of hormones and neurotransmitters as well as potential therapies, including lithium and other antidepressants. Jamison presents fascinating facts about suicide in families and in twins, gender disparities, and the impact of the seasons and times of day. She also provides poignant portraits of those who have committed suicideAfrom the explorer Meriwether Lewis to a high-achieving Air Force Academy graduateAas well as stories from her own experience. Historical perspective on how different societies have viewed suicide gives context, especially on methods and common locales (in the U.S., San Francisco's Golden Gate bridge is the most popular spot). Critical of her profession for not recognizing suicidal tendencies more readily, Jamison scolds the media and firearms industry as well. The book effectively brings suicide out of the closet, gives general readers insight into symptoms and should increase national awareness of the problem. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Jamison--herself a manic-depressive who has attempted suicide and now a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine--brings a special urgency to this study. The personal and the professional blend seamlessly here, allowing Jamison to illuminate the darkest recesses of the human mind. The result is forthright, moving, and impressively unsensational.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

A disappointingly incomplete analysis from a usually good scholar
I've been an admirer of Kay Jamison's research and writing for some time; thus I looked forward to reading this book. I was distressed to find, however, gaps in her analysis that border on irresponsible.

This work is completely (and myopically) filtered through the lens of her career focus: treatment of mood disorders, most especially bipolar and depression. If this was intended to be a comprehensive review of issues related to suicide, so many holes exist here that it's actually hard to believe. There is an extreme paucity of discussion regarding cultural/environmental influences, just of a few of which are: early abuse and trauma, gender and GLBT issues in adolescence and early adulthood, racism, poverty, profound isolation in modern culture...not to mention the cases that have been made for rational suicide.

To omit even a cursory discussion of any of these issues, focusing exclusively on her thesis that suicide results from mood disorders, results in a truly inadequate treatment that does the average, not-fully-informed reader (i.e. the targeted reader) a real disservice.

I give her points for addressing her limited topics well and for bringing a little elegance into the discussion with literary references.

A MUCH better analysis (though also much less user-friendly) can be found in The Comprehensive Textbook of Suicidology.

A Study of Suicide with an Insider Point of View
Dr. Jamison's book is written from a unique and compassionate point of view that most other books on suicide are not - she has seriously attempted suicide, and she has bipolar disorder. She accesses a tremendous amount of research to illustrate the epidemic of suicide in the USA - questionnaires such as: How likely is a person to actually go through with the act? Additionally she is able to tell stories of people who have committed suicide that leave everyone wondering - if only... just as in real life. Does the stigma of mental illness continue to pervade society? She plainly tells the facts of suicide - how people accomplish it, why people do it, when people do it, where they do it. She uses her own pact with a friend to show what a ridiculous thought that is --- you promise to call me before you harm yourself --- when people are at that low point in their lives, the last thing they are going to do is reach out for help, even to someone they know suffers as deeply as they do. She is clearly against suicide, but has much compassion for those who suffer such deep and unrelenting depressions. This is not the 1st book you'd want to read on suicide if you are a recent suicide survivor.

Day Has Passed
I have read all of Jamison's work, with the exception of _The Exuberance of Life_. The writing presented in this volume has resonance from what I have felt. Night Falls Fast should be considered a guide for families of mentally ill who contemplate suicide. It is tight and concise, from the moral judgements which are placed upon those who attempt it, to instances of unsound internal turmoil. Perhaps it is the chaos within writers like Jamison which creates the flight of the mind. When it lies in artists, a connection with profound wisdom or insight develops.

The patient might imagine a series of events leading to his or her demise.
Incidentally, a separate book about Virginia Woolf's art and manic-depressive illness, The Flight of The Mind, demonstates the reason why a manic might contemplate suicide. In extreme states, it may be the fear that loved ones have plotted his or her demise.

Concerning Night Falls Fast, I find that I can easily relate to many of the reasons presented by the author. The string of notes relating one's final thoughts are tragic, but, at times, poeticaly written, from the depths of despair. It recalls V. Woolf's final letter "I fear we shan't go through another one of these terrible times."
I should end noting that each of my incompetant attempts seem futile. . .
Being always rose up from the hospital cot, from the stains, from what seems inexpressible. Often, the tempest returns; then dissipates.