SOURCE: A review of Darkness Visible, in Los Angeles Times Book Review, September 16, 1996, p. 6.

[In the following negative review of William Styron's Darkness Visible, the critic asserts that "there's nothing here that hasn't been said better elsewhere."]

A law professor once said that legal scholarship had two problems—one its style, the other its content. I have a similar reaction to William Styron's new book, and say so reluctantly because it touches on a serious subject: depression, which brought the novelist to the edge of suicide.

Darkness Visible is not, in fact, about depression, since Styron says his bout was essentially beyond description; nor is it about his depression's effect on other people, family and friends making but cameo appearances; nor does it concern the medical world's understanding of the disease, Styron limiting himself to writing, in essence, that his doctors couldn't do much. He does touch on...