Product Description

101 Ways to Climb out of the Slough of Despondency -- a literary guide (part memoir, part companion) to coming through depression. 'Depression is internal snow. Black snow. The flakes whirl around like motes in the water around your personal shipwreck. The quicker you dive down to see your sorry state, the better for you in life. For above you, if only you can reach it without getting the bends, are sunshine, laughter on a yacht, the clink of plates as a lunch of steaming fish is handed round.' Whilst the overall structure of 'Sunbathing in the Rain' moves from dark to light, telling the story of Lewis's recovery, its different strands allow a variety of tones and subjects to be explored, from the profound to the frivolous. Alongside a paragraph about the proper relationship between the ego, the mind and the emotions nestles a passage on the therapeutic value of nail varnish. Practical hints on how to get better (diet, read Hello!, helpful pieces of music) are alongside striking quotations, ranging from sentences on crisp packets, to prayers, from Russian orthodox writings on silence to collections of slang. Part memoir -- drawing on her own experiences, both adverse and encouraging, as a depressive and an alcoholic -- and part guide or companion, this book brings Burton's 'Anatomy of Melancholy' into the twenty-first century. For it will have two voices, one calling from the valley of despair, the other from a safer, calmer new place. The suffering depressive needs help from outside his or her own consciousness, a radical new perspective that makes life possible again. This unique book offers it.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7682 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-16
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Review
'Brave, affecting and uplifting.' The Times 'While many books about depression bring one down with their tales of dark mood states, and others bring one down with artificial and unconvincing messages of hope, Gwyneth Lewis's "Sunbathing in the Rain" is both witty and wise: a profound musing on the problem of depression that is deeply informed yet full of hope and cheer.' Andrew Solomon, author of the award-winning 'The Noonday Demon' '"Sunbathing in the Rain" is undoubtedly the best book I have ever read about one person's experience of depression.' Dorothy Rowe, author of 'Breaking the Bonds' 'I started reading the book on a rainy afternoon and read it right through without stopping to late evening. I was seized by its rhythm of discovery, its humour, courage and sharp-eyed insight. Gwyneth truly draws on literature, bringing to bear writers from everywhere and every time as part of present experience. She gives you confidence in poetry. And she is wonderfully down-to-earth in her advice.' Dame Professor Gillian Beer, President of Clare Hall, Cambridge University 'Genuinely life-changing!It should be available free on the NHS.' The Guardian 'None of the famous universities Gwyneth Lewis attended set exams so merciless as depression did, or taught her such finally luminous wisdom. That's why we get sent on that largest and most hideous course, and why life is so delicious if we live to graduate.This new book by Wales' premier young poet is one of the very best of the many survivor testimonies appearing today.' Les Murray 'Felicitous, urbane, heartbreaking, the poems of Gwyneth Lewis form a universe whose planets use language for oxygen and are thus inhabitable.' Joseph Brodsky

Guardian
'Genuinely life-changing...It should be available free on the
NHS.'

Independent
'wise, witty and strange fully cheerful book offers solace, common
sense and plenty of practical tips.'

Customer Reviews

At last! A helpful book about depression!
I've been severely clinically depressed, on and off, for 21 years. I'm currently in Month 20 of the lastest bout - the worst ever, which forced me to give up work 18 months ago.

Over the years I have read countless books on depression, mostly self-help books. And I can honestly say that none of them has ever helped me even a little bit.

I started reading Sunbathing in the Rain with a sigh of "here we go again - more time and effort to put into reading a book, with no payback". I couldn't have been more wrong.

I literally couldn't put this book down. It made me laugh and cry in equal measure and for the first time in my life I felt I was in the presence of someone who understood what it's REALLY like to be depressed. Best of all, this book has given me hope and heart and the ability to look forward to the future.

It is also, by the way, beautifully written and pleasure to read on that level alone.

sunbathing in the rain
Fantastic. This book was a critical part of my recovery, having picked it up quite randomly from a book store. For me, it is the most accurate account of my experience of depression I have heard from ANYONE. Most importantly of all, it offers those with depression methods of coping with the illness rather than another description of depression. I didn't need to know what depression felt like - I knew EXACTLY what it felt like - what I craved from a book or professional was actual coping strategies for the hell I was going through. Depression fades with time but never goes away, so I felt I needed to 'arm' myself and learn how to live with it. I would never wish depression on my worst enemy, and if you are reading this and have it, I wish you all the best in your recovery. There actually is light at the end of the tunnel!

Always poetic, never depressing
Gwyneth Lewis wrote Sunbathing in the Rain as the book she wished she'd had when curled up like a frozen prawn with devastating depression. It's much more than that though, and you certainly don't need the same diagnosis or the same desperation to benefit from Lewis's gripping insights, which go beyond any narrow definition and plunge straight into the human condition itself.

This isn't a self help book. As Lewis says, self help is the last thing a depressive needs. Instead, it's a personal account of depression, mixed with down to earth advice and good old fashioned comfort and reassurance. Aimed at depressives, it's helpful that Lewis has also broken up the text with short and realistically readable quotes from other writers who know what they're talking about.

We don't get just any personal account of depression either, we get a poet's account, which to me is significant for two reasons. For a start, no-one writes prose like a poet. It might seem like bad taste to consider Sunbathing in the Rain as an exquisitely written work of literature, but it would be impossible to ignore that it is. More significantly perhaps, Lewis presents a very convincing case for a close connection between depression and the act of writing poetry. So convincing that I almost started to sympathise with the insurance company that notoriously charges fellow poet Simon Armitage considerably more to cover the risk of living his life as a writer than when he was a probation officer.

There are some unsettling ideas here about the nature and possible causes of depression. Echoing Les Murray's assertion that the cure for depression is the truth, Lewis adds that depression "says the way you've been living is unbearable". A bit harder to take in its implications than the random chemical accident theory but probably more likely to save your life in the long run.

Sunbathing in the Rain isn't a depressing book. Lewis meant it when she chose the subtitle, A Cheerful Book about Depression, and as a poet and truth teller, she can surely be trusted to mean the book's highly encouraging last line too - that she wouldn't swap her life now for anything.