Sunbathing in the Rain: A Cheerful Book About Depression [Paperback]

‘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

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

'wise, witty and strange fully cheerful book offers solace, common
sense and plenty of practical tips.'
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

101 Ways to Climb out of the Slough of Despond – a literary guide (part memoir, part companion) to coming through depression.

'Depression is internal snow. Black snow. The flakes whirl around like motes in the water around your personal shipwreck. The quicker you dive down to see your sorry state, the better for you in life. For above you, if only you can reach it without getting the bends, are sunshine, laughter on a yacht, the clink of plates as a lunch of steaming fish is handed round.'

Whilst the overall structure of Sunbathing in the Rain moves from dark to light, telling the story of Lewis's recovery, its different strands allow a variety of tones and subjects to be explored, from the profound to the frivolous. Alongside a paragraph about the proper relationship between the ego, the mind and the emotions nestles a passage on the therapeutic value of nail varnish. Practical hints on how to get better (diet, read Hello!, helpful pieces of music) are alongside striking quotations, ranging from sentences on crisp packets, to prayers, from Russian orthodox writings on silence to collections of slang. Part memoir – drawing on her own experiences, both adverse and encouraging, as a depressive and an alcoholic – and part guide or companion, this book brings Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy into the twenty-first century. For it will have two voices, one calling from the valley of despair, the other from a safer, calmer new place. The suffering depressive needs help from outside his or her own consciousness, a radical new perspective that makes life possible again. This unique book offers it.

A profound, frivolous, practical and radical new perspective that makes life possible again.

One of the problems with being seriously depressed is that there is hardly anything that you can do to make yourself feel better. People who urge you to take some exercise, go to see a cheerful film or, worse, to count your blessings, have no concept of the way in which depression turns you into a pile of miserable blancmange, incapable of making a cup of tea, let alone getting dressed.

During my last bout of depression (not my first), I looked for a book to help me get through its agony. It needed to have short passages because I couldn't concentrate for long. Anything 'medical' was out. I needed to know how to get from minute to minute without giving up. What I wanted were accounts of experience from the front line, along with suggestions of how to survive. I needed a human perspective, practical hints and, most important of all, reassurances that I could come through my hell intact.

Sunbathing in the Rain is my attempt to write the book for which I was looking while I was recovering. While I was ill, I found most books on depression, well …. depressing. Sunbathing draws on diaries which I kept (when I could write at all), quotes from my reading, funny stories I saw in the paper, anecdotes - anything that shed light on or gave me relief from feeling so awful. Sunbathing in the Rain is aimed primarily at those who are depressed at the moment and who are looking for something nourishing to read as they go through their terrors and recover. It's structured like a jigsaw puzzle and can be read as slowly or as quickly as you like. It's also aimed at those who aren't ill themselves but who are watching someone close to them struggling. Most of all, I needed a book which, without being facile, would give me hope that this horror would pass and that I might be able to survive and come out into the sunlight at the other side.
Gwyneth Lewis

"'Sunbathing in the Rain' is such a lovely title for a book about beating depression. Gwyneth Lewis says she wants this book to be easy to pick up and read at any page. It is…A delicate, vulnerable triumph."
'Guardian'

Drawing on her own experience, Lewis re-embarks on a journey that nearly killed her first time round and returns from it with this, perhaps 'the first truly undogmatic, undemanding, downright useful companion to depression'. Alongside a paragraph about the proper relationship between the ego, the mind and the emotion, nestles a passage on the 'therapeutic value of nail varnish'. Practical hints '(diet, read HELLO!)' sit alongside striking quotations.

"What gives the book its edge is her determination that the illness must be seen as an early warning system, to be welcomed as a timely indication that something needs addressing. This 'upbeat', very readable and engaging view of depression as a temporary retrenchment, a breathing space in which to adjust better to life, makes 'encouraging' reading."
'Spectator'

'"A flush of hard-won knowledge and hope for a brighter future suffuses these pages"'
'TLS'

"'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 Noonday Demon'

Gwyneth Lewis is an award-winning poet whose work has drawn widespread acclaim. Her previous book, Zero Gravity, which followed the journey of her cousin to repair the Hubble Space telescope, used the science of space to describe a voyage, a death and coming to terms with lost love, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize. She is married and lives in Cardiff.