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Review
‘Brave, affecting and uplifting.' The Times
‘While many books about depression bring one down with their tales of dark mood states, and others bring one down with artificial and unconvincing messages of hope, Gwyneth Lewis's “Sunbathing in the Rain” is both witty and wise: a profound musing on the problem of depression that is deeply informed yet full of hope and cheer.’ Andrew Solomon, author of the award-winning ‘The Noonday Demon’
‘“Sunbathing in the Rain” is undoubtedly the best book I have ever read about one person’s experience of depression.' Dorothy Rowe, author of ‘Breaking the Bonds’
‘I started reading the book on a rainy afternoon and read it right through without stopping to late evening. I was seized by its rhythm of discovery, its humour, courage and sharp-eyed insight. Gwyneth truly draws on literature, bringing to bear writers from everywhere and every time as part of present experience. She gives you confidence in poetry. And she is wonderfully down-to-earth in her advice.’ Dame Professor Gillian Beer, President of Clare Hall, Cambridge University
'Genuinely life-changing…It should be available free on the NHS.' The Guardian
Guardian
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Customer Reviews
Over the years I have read countless books on depression, mostly self-help books. And I can honestly say that none of them has ever helped me even a little bit.
I started reading Sunbathing in the Rain with a sigh of "here we go again - more time and effort to put into reading a book, with no payback". I couldn't have been more wrong.
I literally couldn't put this book down. It made me laugh and cry in equal measure and for the first time in my life I felt I was in the presence of someone who understood what it's REALLY like to be depressed. Best of all, this book has given me hope and heart and the ability to look forward to the future.
It is also, by the way, beautifully written and pleasure to read on that level alone.
This isn't a self help book. As Lewis says, self help is the last thing a depressive needs. Instead, it's a personal account of depression, mixed with down to earth advice and good old fashioned comfort and reassurance. Aimed at depressives, it's helpful that Lewis has also broken up the text with short and realistically readable quotes from other writers who know what they're talking about.
We don't get just any personal account of depression either, we get a poet's account, which to me is significant for two reasons. For a start, no-one writes prose like a poet. It might seem like bad taste to consider Sunbathing in the Rain as an exquisitely written work of literature, but it would be impossible to ignore that it is. More significantly perhaps, Lewis presents a very convincing case for a close connection between depression and the act of writing poetry. So convincing that I almost started to sympathise with the insurance company that notoriously charges fellow poet Simon Armitage considerably more to cover the risk of living his life as a writer than when he was a probation officer.
There are some unsettling ideas here about the nature and possible causes of depression. Echoing Les Murray's assertion that the cure for depression is the truth, Lewis adds that depression "says the way you've been living is unbearable". A bit harder to take in its implications than the random chemical accident theory but probably more likely to save your life in the long run.
Sunbathing in the Rain isn't a depressing book. Lewis meant it when she chose the subtitle, A Cheerful Book about Depression, and as a poet and truth teller, she can surely be trusted to mean the book's highly encouraging last line too - that she wouldn't swap her life now for anything.
There is heaps, really heaps, about it which is wonderful: the practical hints, the tone of... Read more
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