Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide

Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide
by Kay Redfield Jamison

List Price: ~~$14.95~~
Our Price: $5.00
You Save: $9.95 (67%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $4.30 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions

Compare Prices for Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide

Buy this book at online book store in your country
Canada | UK | Germany | France

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.

Write your own review

All Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide Customer Reviews

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.

Suicide Books

Book Subjects

Most talked about in Good Books About Bipolar Disorder

Detour : My Bipolar Road Trip in 4-D
by Lizzie Simon
Washington Square Press; Published: 2003-06-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.99
Price in other shops: ~~$14.00~~

Take Charge of Bipolar Disorder: A 4-Step Plan for You and Your Loved Ones to Manage the Illness and Create Lasting Stability
by Julie A Fast, John Preston
Warner Wellness; Published: 2006-09-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.22
Price in other shops: ~~$18.99~~

Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament
by Kay Redfield Jamison
Free Press; Published: 1996-10-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.39
Price in other shops: ~~$15.00~~

Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide
by Kay Redfield Jamison
Vintage; Published: 2000-10-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops: ~~$14.95~~

Call Me Anna: The Autobiography of Patty Duke
by Patty Duke
Bantam; Published: 1988-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.95
Price in other shops: ~~$7.99~~

You Me and Apollo: Hope Beyond Bipolar Disorder
by J. D. Stottlemire
Lulu.com; Published: 2007-09-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $347.07

Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania
by Andy Behrman
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2003-02-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.83
Price in other shops: ~~$13.95~~

An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
by Kay Redfield Jamison
Vintage; Published: 1996-01-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.98
Price in other shops: ~~$13.95~~

Similar Books and other products

Manic-Depressive Illness: Bipolar Disorders and Recurrent Depression, 2nd Edition
by Frederick K. Goodwin, Kay Redfield Jamison
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2007-03-22; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $70.00
Price in other shops: ~~$110.00~~

Autopsy of a Suicidal Mind
by Edwin S. Shneidman
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2004-02-26; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.81
Price in other shops: ~~$19.95~~

The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
by Andrew Solomon
Scribner; Published: 2002-03-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.81
Price in other shops: ~~$17.00~~

Why People Die by Suicide
by Thomas Joiner
Harvard University Press; Published: 2007-09-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.64
Price in other shops: ~~$15.95~~

The Suicidal Mind
by Edwin S. Shneidman
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1998-04-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.40
Price in other shops: ~~$19.95~~

No Time to Say Goodbye: Surviving The Suicide Of A Loved One
by Carla Fine
Master; Main Street Books; Published: 1999-11-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.43
Price in other shops: ~~$14.95~~

Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness
by William Styron
Vintage; Published: 1992-01-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.00
Price in other shops: ~~$11.95~~

Exuberance: The Passion for Life
by Kay Redfield Jamison
Vintage; Published: 2005-09-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.00
Price in other shops: ~~$14.95~~

An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
by Kay Redfield Jamison
Vintage; Published: 1996-01-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.95
Price in other shops: ~~$13.95~~