Hilary Clark is Professor of English at the University of Saskatchewan. She is the coeditor (with Joseph Adamson) of Scenes of Shame: Psychoanalysis, Shame, and Writing, also published by SUNY Press, and the author of The Dwelling of Weather; More Light; and Two Heavens.

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Depression and NarrativeHilary ClarkI. Negotiating Illness Identity and Stigma 1. My Symptoms, Myself: Reading Mental Illness Memoirs for Identity AssumptionsJennifer Radden2. The Language of Madness: Representing Bipolar Disorder in Kay Redfield Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind and Kate Millett’s The Loony-Bin TripDebra Beilke3. Winter Tales: Comedy and Romance Story-Types in Narratives of DepressionBrenda Dyer4. "Repenting Prodigal": Confession, Conversion, and Shame in William Cowper’s AdelphiHilary Clark5. Leonid Andreev’s Construction of MelancholyFrederick H. White II. Gender and Depression 6. Storying Sadness: Representations of Depression in the Writings of Sylvia Plath, Louise Glück, and Tracy ThompsonSuzanne England, Carol Ganzer, and Carol Tosone7. "Addiction got me what I needed": Depression and Drug Addiction in Elizabeth Wurtzel’s MemoirsJoanne Muzak8. Narrating the Emotional Woman: Uptake and Gender in Discourses on DepressionKimberly Emmons9. Fact Sheets as Gendered Narratives of DepressionLinda M. McMullenIII. Depression across the Media 10. A Dark Web:Depression, Writing, and the InternetKiki Benzon11. A Meditation on Depression, Time, and Narrative Peregrination in the Film The HoursDiane R. Wiener12. Therapy Culture and TV: The Sopranos as a Depression NarrativeDeborah StainesIV. Literary Therapies 13. For the Relief of Melancholy: The Early Chinese Novel as AntidepressantAndrew Schonebaum14. Manic-Depressive Narration and the Hermeneutics of Countertransference: Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient MarinerMark A. ClarkV. Depression and the Limits of Narrative 15. Writing Self/Delusion:Subjectivity and Scriptotherapy in Emily Holmes Coleman’s The Shutter of SnowSophie Blanch16. Depressing Books: W. G. Sebald and the Narratives of HistoryEluned Summers-BremnerList of ContributorsIndex

"Clark has assembled an impressive collection of 16 essays treating the broad psychological topic of depression and how stories shape and dismantle it … This collection will further the current academic interest in disability and illness studies and will appeal to readers across a range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences." — CHOICE"…this is a useful collection of papers that brings the discussion of the role of narrative of mental illness forward." — Metapsychology"The number of scholarly books on depression is growing, perhaps because mood disorders are now so common, but Depression and Narrative is uncommonly interesting and insightful. Hilary Clark has assembled a volume that focuses on how writers attempt to describe anguish that is at times indescribable. Combining theoretical sophistication and close reading, the contributors cast much light on a dark subject." — Jeffrey Berman, author of Dying to Teach: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Learning