Hillbilly Gothic: A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood

"My family has a grand tradition. After a woman gives birth, she goes mad. I thought that I would be the one to escape."

So begins Adrienne Martini's candid, compelling, and darkly humorous history of her family's and her own experiences with depression and postpartum syndrome.

Illuminating depression from the inside, Martini delves unflinchingly into her own breakdown and institutionalization and traces the multigenerational course of this devastating problem. Moving back and forth bet...