A fearless, candid memoir interweaving the author’s descent into depression with a medical and cultural history of the illness. At the age of twenty-seven, married, living in New York, and working in book design, Mary Cregan gives birth to her first child, a daughter she names Anna. But it’s apparent that something is terribly wrong, and two days later, Anna dies, plunging Cregan into suicidal despair. Decades later, sustained by her work, a second marriage, and a son, Cregan reflects on and attempts to make sense of this pivotal experience. Weaving together literature and research with details from her longburied medical records, she writes of her own ordeal and the still-visible scar of a suicide attempt—while considering it as part of a larger history of our understanding of depression. She investigates the treatments she underwent, from hospitalization and shock therapy to psychotherapy and antidepressants. At once intimate and scholarly, The Scar illuminates a too often stigmatised affliction with compassion and intelligence and offers hope to all those who are still struggling.
Mary Cregan attended Middlebury College and received her PhD from Columbia University. She is a lecturer in English literature at Barnard College and lives in New York City.
“The best single volume ever written on the subject, such is its range, authority, and
readability.”—Times Literary Supplement Why has opera transfixed and fascinated audiences for centuries? Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker answer this question in their “effervescent, witty” (Die ...
The first three chapters cover the social context of the relationship, the inherent power differential
that delineates the relational boundaries, and professionals difficulty with managing that power appropriately. Also discussed are the four characteristics of a boundary violation a reversal ...
A Business Week Best Book of the Year.... A devastating and wholly necessary book.—Studs Terkel,
author of Working In The Corrosion of Character, Richard Sennett, among the country's most distinguished thinkers . . . has concentrated into 176 pages a ...
Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award “Dauber deftly surveys the whole recorded history of
Jewish humour.” —EconomistIn a major work of scholarship that explores the funny side of some very serious business (and vice versa), Jeremy Dauber examines the ...
Managing Generation X explains Generation X to its employers. It tunes in to the free-agent
mindset that has swept across the entire workforce and serves as the best source of information on a generation that is leaving an indelible mark ...
“Engrossing and illuminating.” —Arthur Herman, Wall Street JournalWhen Ronald Reagan took office in January 1981,
the United States and NATO were losing the Cold War. The USSR had superiority in conventional weapons and manpower in Europe, and it had embarked ...
When Rosemary Stubbs embarks on her new career as a chaplain at a New England
women's college, she quickly finds herself ensnared in a mystery. She found herself on a circular stair that led down into a great sunken theater, ...
A practical guide to the new economy that is transforming the way we live, work,
and play.Uber. Airbnb. Amazon. Apple. PayPal. All of these companies disrupted their markets when they launched. Today they are industry leaders. What’s the secret to ...
