The Noonday Demon

An Atlas of Depression

By: Andrew Solomon

Narrated by: Barrett Whitener

National Book Award, Nonfiction, 2001

With uncommon humanity, candor, wit, and erudition, National Book Award winner Andrew Solomon takes the listener on a journey of incomparable range and resonance into the most pervasive of family secrets.

The Noonday Demon examines depression in personal, cultural, and scientific terms. Drawing on his own struggles with the illness and interviews with fellow sufferers, doctors and scientists, policymakers and politicians, drug designers and philosophers, Solomon reveals the subtle complexities and sheer agony of the disease. He confronts the challenge of defining the illness and describes the vast range of available medications, the efficacy of alternative treatments, and the impact the malady has had on various demographic populations around the world and throughout history. He also explores the thorny patch of moral and ethical questions posed by emerging biological explanations for mental illness.

The depth of human experience Solomon chronicles, the range of his intelligence, and his boundless curiosity and compassion will change the listener's view of the world.

©2002 Andrew Solomon (P)2012 Simon and Schuster Audio

Critic reviews

"All encompassing, brave, and deeply humane.... It is open-minded, critically informed, and poetic at the same time, and despite the nature of its subject it is written with far too much élan and elegance ever to become depressing itself." ( The New York Times)

"Both heartrending and fascinating.... the book has a scope and passionate intelligence that give it intrigue as well as heft." ( Boston Globe)

"The book for a generation.... Solomon interweaves a personal narrative with scientific, philosophical, historical, political, and cultural insights.... The result is an elegantly written, meticulously researched book that is empathetic and enlightening, scholarly and useful.... Solomon apologizes that 'no book can span the reach of human suffering.' This one comes close." ( TIme)

LOVE this book

What made the experience of listening to The Noonday Demon the most enjoyable?

The perspective is very interesting - I like that he discusses his own experiences but then also provides the experiences of others. Also, including objective information helps maintain an unbiased view.

Who was your favorite character and why?

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What does Barrett Whitener bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He reminds me of the author so I am able to picture him in the scenes/experiences in the book more easily.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

n/a

Any additional comments?

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Important Material, a bit repetitive

The storytelling is very sincere and the research is invaluable. However, the presentation could be more concise. Reading was good.

Fantastic

The book explores the issue of depression to it’s frightening nearly inconceivable depths! Eye opening!

Must read for anyone with depression

What is it like to have depression? This book is as close as you can get without having the real thing.

101 new ways to view depression

This is the magnum opus on the subject from a sufferer, researcher, advocate and acclaimed writer. Too broad to be self help, I wd especially recommend to the treatment community and especially anyone close to someone afflicted. You'll drop that "pity party" and "you're just lazy" B.S. forever.

extremely informative

Losing some acquaintances to suicide, I decided to read this atlas to familiarize myself. The most noteworthy of many noteworthy statements was It snuck up on me and I hadn't paid attention to stuff.

The narrator sounds like he's the author in that he reads with such compassion and empathy.

Informational but not for everyone

I do not suffer from depression but my family does. I have a much better understanding of what is going on in their head. It doesn’t make any sense to me but that’s why I read this book. It gave me a different perspective that I would have not gotten on my own. Also what is possible to expect from them. It really opened my eyes even though I have seen the effects of depression by hearing more of the internal dialogue from the people he interviews.

I wouldn’t recommend someone who is depressed read this book because it is very dark and I would worry it could give them more ideas. Or make there depression worse.

Great content marred by narration

Wonderful, comprehensive read but the narrator should have learned how to pronounce the names of psychiatric meds and other key words correctly before taking this book on. Mispronounced Depakote, Nardil and other meds multiple times which is grating to listen to as well as other names like Kraepelin and, astonishingly the word Haitian (pronounced Ha-yee-tian). Where were the editors or the author in this? I’m a psychiatrist so listened to this book from a different vantage point but appreciated the wonderful review and synthesis of data and especially the personal stories which conveyed the enormous suffering and toll depression takes.

extremely helpful breakdown of depression!

whether you suffer from depression yourself, which I do from time to time, or have a loved one who does, I believe that this book has information in it that can help everyone. while parts of the book made me say, boo, overall the entire book enlighten me and the reality of life is that sometimes parts of our life or unpleasant. my specific take away from this book is that we are all only human, we all have our frailties and Imperfections, and as a society and the universe we need to embrace one another's weaknesses to help us get through it all.

Performance is imperfect yet still powerful

This book was perhaps the hardest to listen to.

The narrator gave a strong performance that, though good, falls short of what it would be if the author read it himself. It is hard to give due emotional emphasis to the reading because if everything is equally emotive, then nothing will stand out. On the other hand, the entire book is very emotive, so it takes a great deal of consideration as to how you stress things so that it doesn’t become monotonous.