The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression is a work of nonfiction by Andrew Solomon that examines depression from personal, cultural and scientific angles. Drawing on his own experience of the illness, Solomon also interviews many others who have lived with it, along with doctors, researchers, policymakers, philosophers and the people who develop new medications. He considers how depression should be defined, surveys the wide range of available treatments, from prescription drugs to alternative therapies, and looks at how the illness has affected different groups of people around the world and across history. The book also takes up the moral and ethical questions raised by new biological explanations for mental illness. Candid, compassionate and wide-ranging, it is written for general readers who want to understand depression, whether from their own experience or that of someone close to them. It won the 2001 National Book Award for Nonfiction.