THIS CLOSE to HAPPINESS a Reckoning with DEPRESSION-Daphne Merkin

Daphne Merkin is a contributing writer for "The New York Times Magazine," an American literary critic and writer of novels and non-fiction.  "This Close to Happiness" is Merkin's autobiography focusing on her lifelong battle with depression for which she was first hospitalized at age eight and again after the birth of her daughter.  Merkin's deft writing lays abundant causes for experiencing depression in a household where parental love was rare and primary care she and her siblings received was from a nanny who did not spare the rod.  Merkin does ponder why, she, and not any of her other siblings shared her penchant for hysteria..  Having been born into wealth and privilege, Merkin concedes she would appears too self-indulgent to be worthy of sympathy or even credibility.  But, the strength of her concise descriptions without apology, lend an authority to her writing that is very convincing.  Other celebrities and famous writers have bared their souls sharing their battles with feelings of overwhelming desolation, making them appear more relatable or noble for sharing.  Merkin's life is undeniably fascinating but unenviable.  The mystery as to why some and not others suffer the pain of debilitating melancholia remain an enigma.  What is made palpable are the unrelenting pangs of suffering. "{"Depression} 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. For the fact is that the quiet terror of sever depression never entirely passes once you've experienced it.  It hovers behind the scenes, placated temporarily by medication and a willed effort at functioning, waiting to slither back in.  It tugs at your awareness keeping you from ever being fully at ease in the present."