I can’t review this book, as it was written by my ex-wife. But I can certainly recommend it. It chronicles Bridget Risemberg’s daunting encounter with depression, a true slog through the Slough of Despond of ancient days, told in drawings made while she was in the midst of the battle.
I’ll let the cover blurb say it all…all I can add is that it is a valuable and deeply affecting document.
Life is full of possibility, they say, and they are right: and depression is one of them. Not depression in response to external events, but the kind that leaps out of the inner darkness to gnaw on your soul. It’s not just “the blues,” it’s not just “a passing cloud.” It stalks you, or so say many who have faced it. Churchill referred to it as his “black dog,” always following behind.
In Bridget Risemberg’s life, depression manifested itself as the Chamaeleon, a terrifying dark angel whispering evil into her ears, lurking in unexpected places, gazing, stalking, slow but relentless. And she faced it, with the help of family, friends, and therapists, but also, as with so many of us, with her skill in art.
These simple line drawings express the terrors and exhilaration of dealing with this unknowable entity that lurks forever at the edge of sight. They document that fear and the strange joy that comes from facing fear and turning it back on itself.
Depression is common among our species, and so this journey in pictures is doubly significant: for those who are depressed, they show that you can face off the beats. For those who are not, they show what your friends, your neighbors, your kin may be dealing with.
It isn’t just the blues. It is the human condition, drawn in pen and ink.
The Chatoyant Muse, in Kindle or paperback
Crow Tree Books 