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khornstein1's review against another edition
3.0
Uhhhh...how can I say this and not sound judgmental? I noticed in this book that there were times that the author actually did sound "happy" or at least not clinically depressed and they were the times when she was really busy doing things. In fact, she talks about a a busy and successful career in book publishing. In fact, she is a well-known writer, successful and high-earning publisher, has a loving daughter, and many friends to hang out with.
The times she is depressed is when she hangs out with her mother, who was abusive. Or when she lies around her apartment alone THINKING about her depression. You would think that would make a light bulb go off in her head..or her therapist's head...but it doesn't.
OK, that's all I'm going to say about this one because I do indeed have sympathy and empathy for anyone who's depressed.
The times she is depressed is when she hangs out with her mother, who was abusive. Or when she lies around her apartment alone THINKING about her depression. You would think that would make a light bulb go off in her head..or her therapist's head...but it doesn't.
OK, that's all I'm going to say about this one because I do indeed have sympathy and empathy for anyone who's depressed.
kittey2ng's review against another edition
3.0
Overall very well written, especially the first half. Felt like lost some steam partway through.
melcheslog's review against another edition
5.0
Wow!! Absolutely gripping in that I felt Merkin’s struggles with her depression so tangibly. This is not for the faint of heart. This is cut and dry what it’s like to be in the mind and life of someone with severe depression.
neilrcoulter's review against another edition
1.0
I occasionally read a book about depression, thinking that it might help me through my own mild depression. But I think it only makes me depressed.
I liked the title of this one, This Close to Happy, because it feels very much like what I live through. I look around me, at my amazing life and all the ways God has blessed me, and I get frustrated with myself because I'm not happy like I should be. I feel exactly this title: I am this close to happy, so why am I not completely happy?
That title seems ludicrous for a book by Daphne Merkin, however. Merkin is light-years away from happy. According to this memoir, she almost always has been, and seems likely to continue being, about as far from happy as it is possible to be. The book's subtitle, A Reckoning with Depression, is equally inapt. This is not reckoning with depression; it's wallowing in depression. The way Merkin views the world makes my own perspective seem like rainbows and sunshine.
She occasionally writes a passage that really does explain how I feel. "One of the most intolerable aspects of depression," she writes, "is the way it insinuates itself everywhere in your life, casting a pall not only over the present but the past and the future as well, suggesting nothing but its own inevitability. . . . It hovers behind the scenes. . . . It sits in the space behind your eyes, making its presence felt even in those moments when other, lighter matters are at the forefront of your mind. It tugs at your awareness, keeping you from ever being fully in the present" (98). I understand that completely, that frustrating questioning of myself, "What is wrong with me that I can't just let myself be happy right now??"
But Merkin reveals early and often in this too-open memoir that she is fascinated by suicide. She thinks about it a lot, even down to the details of how she would do it (usually influenced by ways famous authors killed themselves; she's never far away from wanting to be part of the authors she idolizes). Chapter 3 is all about suicide. But it's ever-present in the narrative. In chapter 22, for example, Merkin says that "Sometimes, when Maria [the hired nurse for Merkin's baby], who had agreed to say on longer than planned, was out with Zoë [Merkin's baby daughter], I would take a big knife out from one of the kitchen drawers and stare at it, willing myself to plunge it into my chest" (175). Because I've never been suicidal, these moments in This Close to Happy push me further from the author.
Without a doubt, Merkin was dealt a lousy hand in life. She was raised in a very wealthy family in New York City (Manhattan's Merkin Concert Hall is named for her father), and should have had everything materially that she could ever want. Instead, she had parents who were strangely cold and distant, and a psychologically and physically abusive nanny. Oddly, the parents withheld even material comforts from their children, and Merkin remembers that there was never enough food around the house. I feel very sorry for her, and her story is an example of how even the super-rich can live in emotional poverty.
What I don't understand is how Merkin never escaped this childhood hurt at all. She had a disturbingly codependent relationship with her mother, constantly yearning for love and affection that was never there. But she is never able to move on. In entering into her story through this book, it becomes difficult to continue sympathizing with her. It's a fine balance, to be sure, but by the middle of the book I was just done feeling any sympathy for Merkin. There comes a time to grow up, move on, build a life. It seems clear to me that Merkin has been hurt by never escaping what sounds like a very intense, competitive, and artificial life among the elite in NYC. She has spent her whole life longing to be part of an inner circle that almost certainly wouldn't have been satisfying even had she been part of it (which she has been, actually). What might have happened had she moved to a town where people actually care about each other, and would have been interested in her just for who she is, scars and all?
She admits throughout the book that she has fought depression with the benefit of all the money she could ever want. And I get that being rich doesn't guarantee happiness. But at a certain point in the book, it becomes absurd how wealthy she is and what a lavish life she leads, all the while dreaming of killing herself. The book becomes an unintentional argument against the idea of wealth being concentrated in particular families. It's hard to see the Merkin family wealth as doing much to help the world, as it can't even help Merkin face everyday life, despite the many thousands of dollars she must have spent on therapy, hospitalization, medication, and leisure. Might life have been different for Merkin if it had demanded more regular work from her?
The book is also an inadvertent argument against the humanities in general. Merkin very obviously wants to be known as someone who is intimate with the "right" authors and artists. But her familiarity with literature doesn't help her. She comes across like a grad student who never moved beyond the fresh-faced academic's passion for great literature. I can't say exactly why this aspect of the book bothered me, but it really made me sad.
I picked up This Close to Happy to gain insight into depression, not to read a juicy, tell-all memoir. But it is much more the latter than the former. I can't relate to much of what it says about depression in general, and I'm uninterested in Merkin's inappropriately transparent autobiographical narrative. This book was a chore to finish, and not one I would recommend to anyone.
I liked the title of this one, This Close to Happy, because it feels very much like what I live through. I look around me, at my amazing life and all the ways God has blessed me, and I get frustrated with myself because I'm not happy like I should be. I feel exactly this title: I am this close to happy, so why am I not completely happy?
That title seems ludicrous for a book by Daphne Merkin, however. Merkin is light-years away from happy. According to this memoir, she almost always has been, and seems likely to continue being, about as far from happy as it is possible to be. The book's subtitle, A Reckoning with Depression, is equally inapt. This is not reckoning with depression; it's wallowing in depression. The way Merkin views the world makes my own perspective seem like rainbows and sunshine.
She occasionally writes a passage that really does explain how I feel. "One of the most intolerable aspects of depression," she writes, "is the way it insinuates itself everywhere in your life, casting a pall not only over the present but the past and the future as well, suggesting nothing but its own inevitability. . . . It hovers behind the scenes. . . . It sits in the space behind your eyes, making its presence felt even in those moments when other, lighter matters are at the forefront of your mind. It tugs at your awareness, keeping you from ever being fully in the present" (98). I understand that completely, that frustrating questioning of myself, "What is wrong with me that I can't just let myself be happy right now??"
But Merkin reveals early and often in this too-open memoir that she is fascinated by suicide. She thinks about it a lot, even down to the details of how she would do it (usually influenced by ways famous authors killed themselves; she's never far away from wanting to be part of the authors she idolizes). Chapter 3 is all about suicide. But it's ever-present in the narrative. In chapter 22, for example, Merkin says that "Sometimes, when Maria [the hired nurse for Merkin's baby], who had agreed to say on longer than planned, was out with Zoë [Merkin's baby daughter], I would take a big knife out from one of the kitchen drawers and stare at it, willing myself to plunge it into my chest" (175). Because I've never been suicidal, these moments in This Close to Happy push me further from the author.
Without a doubt, Merkin was dealt a lousy hand in life. She was raised in a very wealthy family in New York City (Manhattan's Merkin Concert Hall is named for her father), and should have had everything materially that she could ever want. Instead, she had parents who were strangely cold and distant, and a psychologically and physically abusive nanny. Oddly, the parents withheld even material comforts from their children, and Merkin remembers that there was never enough food around the house. I feel very sorry for her, and her story is an example of how even the super-rich can live in emotional poverty.
What I don't understand is how Merkin never escaped this childhood hurt at all. She had a disturbingly codependent relationship with her mother, constantly yearning for love and affection that was never there. But she is never able to move on. In entering into her story through this book, it becomes difficult to continue sympathizing with her. It's a fine balance, to be sure, but by the middle of the book I was just done feeling any sympathy for Merkin. There comes a time to grow up, move on, build a life. It seems clear to me that Merkin has been hurt by never escaping what sounds like a very intense, competitive, and artificial life among the elite in NYC. She has spent her whole life longing to be part of an inner circle that almost certainly wouldn't have been satisfying even had she been part of it (which she has been, actually). What might have happened had she moved to a town where people actually care about each other, and would have been interested in her just for who she is, scars and all?
She admits throughout the book that she has fought depression with the benefit of all the money she could ever want. And I get that being rich doesn't guarantee happiness. But at a certain point in the book, it becomes absurd how wealthy she is and what a lavish life she leads, all the while dreaming of killing herself. The book becomes an unintentional argument against the idea of wealth being concentrated in particular families. It's hard to see the Merkin family wealth as doing much to help the world, as it can't even help Merkin face everyday life, despite the many thousands of dollars she must have spent on therapy, hospitalization, medication, and leisure. Might life have been different for Merkin if it had demanded more regular work from her?
The book is also an inadvertent argument against the humanities in general. Merkin very obviously wants to be known as someone who is intimate with the "right" authors and artists. But her familiarity with literature doesn't help her. She comes across like a grad student who never moved beyond the fresh-faced academic's passion for great literature. I can't say exactly why this aspect of the book bothered me, but it really made me sad.
I picked up This Close to Happy to gain insight into depression, not to read a juicy, tell-all memoir. But it is much more the latter than the former. I can't relate to much of what it says about depression in general, and I'm uninterested in Merkin's inappropriately transparent autobiographical narrative. This book was a chore to finish, and not one I would recommend to anyone.
nanikeeva's review against another edition
3.0
i acknowledge this is far from a universal compilation of experiences, but the writing actually felt quite good and definitely above average in terms of insights/validation
lilydawnharkins's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
3.0
Found myself kind of getting upset with the author at times, though I guess that gave me room to explore those feelings, I read reviews before I wrote my own so I’m not sure how I actually feel anymore, gonna try to write mine First next time
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts
alexmjjohnson's review against another edition
4.0
I was kinda surprised by this book. I grabbed it with a bunch of other books about depression at my library and was expecting more of a generic horror story of "oh my god look at all these terrible things that happened to me" you see in books about depression, but it isn't like that. Merkin is frank about her privileges and seeming lack of a real reason to be depressed and that's a somewhat underrepresented group when it comes to mental illness. I am a part of this group that is suicidal yet high-functioning. Depressed, but well-educated. Merkin was a writer for the New Yorker and the book is written very intelligently with references to Antonioni's Blow-Up, Plath's The Bell Jar, and DFW as a depressed, high-functioning writer. Maybe a little light on real revelations and I wouldn't exactly recommend this as a self-help book, but it was a good read nonetheless.
janthonytucson's review against another edition
1.0
Not what I was expecting. This book was too self indulgent 1 percenter, and not enough about what I thought the topic was about.
anomie's review against another edition
3.0
Less about depression and more about her childhood. Not even a memoir, though - too nonlinear.