Nothing Was the Same
Kay Redfield Jamison
The Washington Post Best Books of 2009
'It is a deeply moving story of love and loss against the odds written with restraint, lyricism and wisdom.'
Fiona Capp (The Age (Pick of the Week))'This beautiful memoir … is honest, true, and helpful. And even more, it is well-written and laced with warmth and wisdom …
In this book, the author brings to bear both the keen and incisive observation of a scientist, and the powers of expression of a literary sensibility. The language is at the same time spare but elegant, analytical and lyrical, restrained but but not detached. It is a gift to us all that there are such people who can guide us through the difficult terrain of the troubled mind and heart.'
Peter Kirkwood (The Australian)'The great gift Jamison offers here, beyond her honesty and the beauty of her writing, is perspective: a clear-eyed view of illness and death, sanity and insanity, love and grief ... Jamison seems to be telling the truth, no matter how difficult it may be, in a way that avoids self-pity and inspires courage. To write the truth with such passion and grace is remarkable enough. To do this in loving memory of a partner is tribute indeed.'
Reeve Lindbergh (The Washington Post)From the internationally acclaimed author of An Unquiet Mind, comes an exquisite, haunting meditation on mortality, grief, and loss.
Perhaps no one but Kay Redfield Jamison — who combines the acute perceptions of a psychologist with a writerly elegance and passion — could bring such a delicate touch to the subject of losing a spouse to cancer. In direct, straightforward, and at times strikingly lyrical prose, Jamison looks back at her relationship with her husband, Richard Wyatt, a renowned scientist who battled debilitating dyslexia to become one of the foremost experts on schizophrenia. And with her characteristic honesty, candour, wit, and simplicity, she describes his death, her own long, difficult struggle with grief, and her efforts to distinguish grief from depression.
But she also recalls the great joy that Richard brought her during the nearly twenty years they had together. Wryly humorous anecdotes mingle with bittersweet memories of a relationship that was passionate and loving — if troubled on occasion by her manic-depressive (bipolar) illness — as Jamison reveals the ways in which her husband encouraged her to write openly about her mental illness and, through his courage and grace, taught her to live fully.
A penetrating psychological study of grief viewed from deep inside the experience itself, Nothing Was the Same is also a deeply moving memoir by a superb writer.
'In An Unquiet Mind, Kay Jamison wrote with exceptional bravery and grace about living through mania, paralyzing depressions, and a suicide attempt. Here, with the same strength of mind and sweetness of spirit, she writes about her husband’s struggles with Hodgkin’s disease and Burkitt’s lymphoma and death from lung cancer as well as her own struggles with loss and grief.'
Barbara Fisher (The Boston Globe)'Jamison's masterful meditation on grief and depression are particularly compelling.'
Julia Stirling (The Big Issue)'Grief is given to all, depression only to those who are cursed with it. In this slim, intense memoir Jamison shows us that mourning leads us back to life.'
Michael Greenberg (New York Times)Kay Redfield Jamison
Kay Redfield Jamison is professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She is co-director of the Johns Hopkins Mood Disorders Center, and a member of the governing board of the national Network of Depression Centers. Dr Jamison is also honorary professor of English at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. She is the author of the U.S. bestsellers An Unquiet Mind and Night Falls Fast, as well as of Touched with Fire and Exuberance. She is the co-author of the standard medical text on bipolar illness, Manic-Depressive Illness: bipolar disorders and recurrent depression, and author or co-author of more than a hundred scientific papers about mood disorders, creativity, and psychopharmacology. Dr Jamison is the recipient of numerous national and international scientific awards, as well as a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship.
Buy from Readings
Extent: 224pp
Size: 210mm x 135mm
ISBN (13): 9781921640087
RRP: $27.95
Pub date: October 2009
ANZ, South Africa
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