Books like

Books like Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness

12 books with a reading profile close to Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by William Styron. Deep, inward-looking and contemplative; a moderate read.

1

Autobiography of a Face

by Lucy Grealy

Also inward-looking and contemplative · memoir, literary

Lucy Grealy describes her childhood diagnosis of Ewing’s sarcoma and the subsequent removal of much of her jawbone.
2

Heart Berries

by Terese Marie Mailhot

Also inward-looking · memoir, literary

Terese Marie Mailhot writes a series of essays documenting her time in a mental health facility following a post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar II diagnosis.
3

Le Consentement

by Vanessa Springora

Also inward-looking · memoir, literary

In this memoir, Vanessa Springora details her relationship as a thirteen-year-old girl with the celebrated writer Gabriel Matzneff, who was then fifty.
4

The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone

by Olivia Laing

Also deep and inward-looking · memoir, literary

After moving to New York City and experiencing a period of intense isolation, Olivia Laing investigates the social and psychological mechanics of loneliness through the lens of twentieth-century American art.
5

The Liars' Club

by Mary Karr

Also inward-looking · memoir, literary

Published in 1995, Mary Karr’s memoir recreates her volatile childhood in the 1960s within a gritty East Texas oil town.
6

Girl, Interrupted

by Susanna Kaysen

Also deep and inward-looking · memoir, literary

Susanna Kaysen recounts her eighteen-month stay at McLean Hospital, a psychiatric facility, after a suicide attempt and a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder in 1967.
7

An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

by Kay Redfield Jamison

Also deep and inward-looking · memoir, literary

Kay Redfield Jamison provides a clinical and personal account of living with manic-depressive illness while maintaining a career as a professor of psychiatry.
8

The Year of Magical Thinking

by Joan Didion

Also deep and inward-looking · memoir, literary

Joan Didion documents the first twelve moon cycles following the sudden death of her husband, writer John Gregory Dunne.
9

How to Say Babylon

by Safiya Sinclair

Also inward-looking and contemplative · memoir, literary

Safiya Sinclair recounts her childhood in Jamaica under the rigid authority of her father, a strict Rastafarian musician who enforced a sequestered life to protect his daughters from "Babylon," his term for the corrupti…
10

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

by Alison Bechdel

Also deep and inward-looking · memoir, literary

Alison Bechdel reconstructs her childhood lived inside a meticulously restored Victorian mansion that doubled as the family-run funeral home.
11

Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama

by Alison Bechdel

Also deep and inward-looking · memoir, literary

Alison Bechdel follows her previous memoir about her father with this investigation into her relationship with her mother, Helen.
12

Letters to Milena

by Franz Kafka

Also deep and inward-looking · memoir, literary

Franz Kafka’s correspondence with Milena Jesenská begins as a professional exchange regarding the translation of his prose into Czech but quickly pivots into a private record of obsessive emotional attachment.

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