Jolt: My Electric Journey Out of Darkness

Reminiscent of William Styron’s Darkness Visible but with an appealing vein of humor, a magnificently written memoir of riding the depression roller coaster, choosing electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), and finding the path to happiness—with fascinating side-journeys into the nature of identity and memory.

Growing up in a hyper-educated, artistic, eccentric family, Ted Scheinman, the son of a medical doctor and an English professor, spent much of his precocious childhood as a writer and perform...