Night Falls Fast
Page 47
The staff of the National Institutes of Health Library were particularly helpful in tracking down the scientific and clinical literature on suicide. I also used extensively the William H. Welch Medical Library of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Georgetown University Library, the University of St. Andrews Library, the London Library (which files its books about suicide on the “Science and Miscellaneous” shelves between “Sugar” and “Sundials”), and the National Gallery of Art Library in Washington, D.C. Mildred L. Amer, who is with the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, assisted in locating information about U.S. Congressmen who died of other than natural causes. Mrs. J. M. Buckberry, Librarian and Archivist of the Royal Air Force College in England, sent me material about the history and literature of aviation.
Dr. Alex Crosby, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta; Dr. Eve Mościcki, from the epidemiology branch of the National Institute of Mental Health; and Ken Kochanek, M.A., with the Mortality Branch of the National Center for Health Statistics, were very helpful in providing me with up-to-date suicide statistics. Dr. Robert Gallo and Dr. Farley Cleghorn, with the Institute of Virology at the University of Maryland, and Dr. Harry Rosenberg, Chief of the Mortality Statistics Branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, provided AIDS mortality statistics. Tom Campbell and Roger Jorstad in the Department of Defense sent me Vietnam War mortality data. Broadcast journalist Paul Berry provided me with background information and videotape footage about his friend John Wilson, the former chairman of the D.C. Council.
Many of my colleagues, along with other individuals, were kind enough to send me manuscripts or works-in-progress; others shared new data, illustrations, or opinions about ongoing research protocols. I am indebted to Dr. Eileen Ahearn, Duke University Medical Center; Dr. Marie Åsberg, the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm; Dr. Susan Bachus, the Clinical Brain Disorders Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health; Dr. Aaron Beck, University of Pennsylvania; Dr. Lanny Berman, American Association of Suicidology; Virginia Betts, R.N., J.D., in the U.S. Surgeon General’s office; Dr. Emil Coccaro, University of Chicago; Dr. Francis Collins and his staff at the National Human Genome Research Institute; Dr. Jerry Cott, National Institute of Mental Health; Dr. Joseph Coyle, Harvard Medical School; Dr. Lucy Davidson, Emory University School of Medicine; Lamia Doumato, National Gallery of Art; Karen Dunne-Maxim, R.N.; Colonel Molly Hall, U.S. Air Force; Dr. Dan Herman, New York Psychiatric Institute; Dr. Herb Hendin, New York Medical College and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention; Dr. Joseph Hibbeln, Laboratory of Membrane Biochemistry and Biophysics, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism; Dr. J. Dee Higley, Primate Unit, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism; Liz Hylton, the Washington Post; Dr. Steven Hyman, National Institute of Mental Health; Dr. Joanne Leslie, UCLA School of Public Health; Dr. John Mann, Columbia University; the Viscount Norwich; Dr. Barbara Parry, University of Calilfornia, San Diego; Dr. Alec Roy, Veteran Affairs Medical Center, New Jersey; Dr. David Rubinow, National Institute of Mental Health; Dr. Donald Rubenstein, Stanford University and the University of Guam; Dr. Matthew Rudorfer, National Institute of Mental Health; Dr. David Shaffer, Columbia University; Dr. John Smialek, Chief Medical Examiner for the State of Maryland; Dr. Michael Sopher, UCLA Department of Anesthesiology; David Sturtevant, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Dr. Ezra Susser, New York Psychiatric Institute; Ian Tattersall, American Museum of Natural History; Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, the Stanley Foundation; Dr. Tom Wehr, National Institute of Mental Health; Dr. Myrna Weissman, Columbia University; and Dr. Peter Whybrow, UCLA School of Medicine.
I am deeply appreciative to my colleagues who carefully reviewed my manuscript and offered numerous and very helpful suggestions: Dr. Samuel Barondes, University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine; Dr. Lucy Davidson, Emory University School of Medicine; Dr. Ellen Frank, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine; Dr. Dean Jamison, UCLA School of Public Health; Dr. David Kupfer, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine; Dr. John Mann, Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons; Dr. Charles Nemeroff, Emory University School of Medicine; Dr. Norman Rosenthal, National Institute of Mental Health; and Dr. Anthony Storr of Oxford, England.
I am particularly grateful to the following people for their friendship and support: Dr. Daniel Auerbach, David Mahoney, Dr. Anthony Storr, Dr. and Mrs. James Ballenger, Robert Boorstin, Lucie Bryant, Dr. Raymond De Paulo and my other colleagues at Johns Hopkins, Professor Douglas Dunn, Dr. Robert Faguet and Dr. Kay Faguet, Antonello and Christina Fanna, Mrs. Katharine Graham, Charles and Gwenda Hyman, Earl and Helen Kindle, Dr. Athanasio Koukopoulos, Senator George McGovern, Dr. Paul McHugh, Alain Moreau, Clarke and Wendy Oler, Victor and Harriet Potik, Senator Robert Packwood, Dr. Norman Rosenthal, Dr. Per Vestergaard, Dr. Jeremy Waletzky, Dr. and Mrs. James Watson, and Professor Robert Winter. During a difficult time, Senator Orrin Hatch extended kindness and his friendship, which has meant a great deal to me. So too has the friendship of songwriter Mickey Newbury, whose words and music have been a sad and lovely thread throughout my life for thirty years.
Carol Janeway, my editor at Alfred A. Knopf, has been remarkable, and I cannot imagine that I could have had the privilege of working with anyone better. Stephanie Katz, also at Knopf, has been enormously helpful. I am indebted, as well, to Paul Bogaards and William Loverd at Knopf, and to my agent, Maxine Groffsky. William Collins, who has typed all of my manuscripts, has been simply wonderful. Silas Jones has helped me on a nearly daily basis, and I am deeply grateful to him for everything he has done to make my life easier.
As always, I owe my family everything: my mother, Dell Jamison; my father, Marshall Jamison; Danica and Kelda Jamison; Joanne Leslie; Julian, Eliot, and Leslie Jamison; Kin Bing Wu; and my brother, Dean Jamison.
My husband, Richard Wyatt, encouraged me to write this book, read every chapter as I wrote it, and made excellent scientific and clinical suggestions. He understood that the book was not an easy one to write, and he could not have been more loving or supportive. I am very fortunate.
PERMISSIONS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:
American Psychological Association: Figure 6, page 133, and Figure 7, page 134, from Adolescent Suicide by A. L. Berman and D. A. Jobes, copyright © 1991 by the American Psychological Association. Reprinted by permission of the American Psychological Association.
Ardis Publishers: Excerpt from poem by Sergei Esenin in Esenin: A Life by Gordon McVay. Reprinted by permission of Ardis Publishers.
Elizabeth Barnett, Literary Executor, Edna St. Vincent Millay Society: Excerpt from “Not So Far as the Forest (I)” and “From a Very Little Sphinx (IV)” in Collected Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay (New York: HarperCollins Publishers), copyright © 1929, 1939, 1956, 1967 by Edna St. Vincent Millay and Norma Millay Ellis. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Elizabeth Barnett, Literary Executor, Edna St. Vincent Millay Society.
Bolton Press Atlanta: Poem by Iris M. Bolton from My Son … My Son by Iris M. Bolton (Bolton Press Atlanta, 1983, 1991). Reprinted by permission of Bolton Press Atlanta.
Canongate Books: Excerpt from Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon (Canongate Classics, imprint of Canongate Books, 1995). Reprinted by permission of Canongate Books, Edinburgh EH1 1TE, United Kingdom.
Chatto & Windus: Excerpt from “An Academic” from Collected Poems by Norman MacCaig. Reprinted by permission of Chatto & Windus, an imprint of The Random House Group Ltd., on behalf of the Estate of Norman MacCaig.
Delacorte Press: Excerpt from Josh: My Up and Down, In and Out Life by Joshua L. Logan, copyright © 1976 by Joshua L. Logan. Reprinted by permission of Delacorte Press, a division of Random House, Inc.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC: 4 lines from “#235” and 8 lines from “#384” from The Dream Songs by John Berryman, copyright © 1969 by John Berryman, copyright renewe
d 1997 by Kate Donahue Berryman; excerpt from “Suicide” from Day by Day by Robert Lowell, copyright © 1977 by Robert Lowell. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
Carl Fischer Music: Excerpt from the lyric “The U.S. Air Force” by Robert Crawford, copyright © 1939, 1942, 1951 by Carl Fischer LLC. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Carl Fischer Music.
Harcourt, Inc.: Excerpts from The Letters of Virginia Woolf, Volume VI: 1936–1941 by Nigel Nicolson and Joanne Trautmann, copyright © 1980 by Quentin Bell and Angelica Garnett. Reprinted by permission of Harcourt, Inc.
Houghton Mifflin Company and Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc.: Excerpt from “To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Triumph” from All My Pretty Ones by Anne Sexton, copyright © 1962 by Anne Sexton, copyright renewed 1990 by Linda G. Sexton. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company and Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc.
Alfred A. Knopf and Harold Ober Associates Incorporated: “Suicide Note” from Collected Poems by Langston Hughes, copyright © 1994 by the Estate of Langston Hughes. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf and Harold Ober Associates Incorporated.
New Directions Publishing Corp. and David Higham Associates Limited: 3 lines from “The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower” by Dylan Thomas from The Poems of Dylan Thomas, copyright © 1939 by New Directions Publishing Corp. Rights outside the United States from Collected Poems by Dylan Thomas (J. M. Dent), administered by David Higham Associates Limited, London. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. and David Higham Associates Limited.
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.: “When One of Us Is Gone” by Josephine Pesaresi from Suicide and Its Aftermath: Understanding and Counseling the Survivors, edited by Edward J. Dunne, John L. McIntosh, Karen Dunne-Maxim, copyright © 1987 by Edward J. Dunne, John L. McIntosh, Karen Dunne-Maxim. Reprinted by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Sheil Land Associates Ltd.: Excerpt from A Voice That Thunders by Alan Garner (London: The Harvill Press), copyright © 1997 by Alan Garner. Reprinted by permission of Sheil Land Associates Ltd.
Viking Penguin: “Résumé” from The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker, copyright © 1926, 1928, copyright renewed 1954, 1956 by Dorothy Parker. Reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.
The Washington Post Writers Group: Excerpt from “A Bridge He Could Not Cross” by Peter Perl (The Washington Post Magazine, Nov. 14, 1993), copyright © 1993 by The Washington Post. Reprinted by permission of The Washington Post Writers Group.
A. P. Watt Ltd.: Excerpt from “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death” by W. B. Yeats. Reprinted by permission of A. P. Watt Ltd. on behalf of Michael B. Yeats.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
KAY REDFIELD JAMISON is Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, as well as Honorary Professor of English at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. She is the author of the national best-seller An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness and coauthor of the standard medical text on manic-depressive illness. She is also the author of Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, as well as more than a hundred scientific papers about mood disorders, psychotherapy, psychopharmacology, and suicide. Dr. Jamison, formerly the director of the UCLA Affective Disorders Clinic, is the recipient of numerous national and international scientific awards, including the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s Research Award. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband, Richard Wyatt, a physician and scientist at the National Institutes of Health.
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