The Scar: A Personal History of Depression and Recovery

A graceful and penetrating memoir interweaving the author's descent into depression with a medical and cultural history of this 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...