Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide

Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide
by Kay Redfield Jamison

Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide
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Book Summary Information

Author: Kay Redfield Jamison
Edition: Paperback
Published: 2000-10-10
ISBN: 0375701478
Number of pages: 448
Publisher: Vintage

Book Reviews of Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide

Book Review: A disappointingly incomplete analysis from a usually good scholar
Summary: 2 Stars

I've been an admirer of Kay Jamison's research and writing for some time; thus I looked forward to reading this book. I was distressed to find, however, gaps in her analysis that border on irresponsible.

This work is completely (and myopically) filtered through the lens of her career focus: treatment of mood disorders, most especially bipolar and depression. If this was intended to be a comprehensive review of issues related to suicide, so many holes exist here that it's actually hard to believe. There is an extreme paucity of discussion regarding cultural/environmental influences, just of a few of which are: early abuse and trauma, gender and GLBT issues in adolescence and early adulthood, racism, poverty, profound isolation in modern culture...not to mention the cases that have been made for rational suicide.

To omit even a cursory discussion of any of these issues, focusing exclusively on her thesis that suicide results from mood disorders, results in a truly inadequate treatment that does the average, not-fully-informed reader (i.e. the targeted reader) a real disservice.

I give her points for addressing her limited topics well and for bringing a little elegance into the discussion with literary references.

A MUCH better analysis (though also much less user-friendly) can be found in The Comprehensive Textbook of Suicidology.

Summary of Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide

"Suicide is a particularly awful way to die: the mental suffering leading up to it is usually prolonged, intense, and unpalliated," writes Kay Redfield Jamison. "There is no morphine equivalent to ease the acute pain, and death not uncommonly is violent and grisly." Jamison has studied manic-depressive illness and suicide both professionally--and personally. She first planned her own suicide at 17; she attempted to carry it out at 28. Now professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, she explores the complex psychology of suicide, especially in people younger than 40: why it occurs, why it is one of our most significant health problems, and how it can be prevented. Jamison discusses manic-depression, suicide in different cultures and eras, suicide notes (they "promise more than they deliver"), methods, preventive treatments, and the devastating effects on loved ones. She explores what type of person commits suicide, and why, and when. She illustrates her points with detailed anecdotes about people who have attempted or committed suicide, some famous, some ordinary, many of them young. Not easy reading, either in subject or style, but you'll understand suicide better and be jolted by the intensity of depression that drives young people to it. --Joan Price
From the author of the best-selling memoir An Unquiet Mind, comes the first major book in a quarter century on suicide, and its terrible pull on the young in particular. Night Falls Fast is tragically timely: suicide has become one of the most common killers of Americans between the ages of fifteen and forty-five.

An internationally acknowledged authority on depressive illnesses, Dr. Jamison has also known suicide firsthand: after years of struggling with manic-depression, she tried at age twenty-eight to kill herself. Weaving together a historical and scientific exploration of the subject with personal essays on individual suicides, she brings not only her remarkable compassion and literary skill but also all of her knowledge and research to bear on this devastating problem. This is a book that helps us to understand the suicidal mind, to recognize and come to the aid of those at risk, and to comprehend the profound effects on those left behind. It is critical reading for parents, educators, and anyone wanting to understand this tragic epidemic.

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