Synopses & Reviews
In the tradition of
The Emperor of All Maladies and
The Noonday Demon, a moving, eye-opening exploration of PTSD
Just as polio loomed over the 1950s, and AIDS stalked the 1980s and ’90s, posttraumatic stress disorder haunts us in the early years of the twenty-first century. Over a decade into the United States’ “global war on terror,” PTSD afflicts as many as 30 percent of the conflict’s veterans. But the disorder’s reach extends far beyond the armed forces. In total, some twenty-seven million Americans are believed to be PTSD survivors. Yet to many of us, the disorder remains shrouded in mystery, secrecy, and shame.
Now, David J. Morris — a war correspondent, former Marine, and PTSD sufferer himself — has written the essential account of this illness. Through interviews with individuals living with PTSD, forays into the scientific, literary, and cultural history of the illness, and memoir, Morris crafts a moving work that will speak not only to those with the condition and to their loved ones, but also to all of us struggling to make sense of an anxious and uncertain time.
Review
"Morris brings not just experience but insight to a topic of grave relevance....Drawing on wisdom from his own experience, conversations with other sufferers, and such literary sources as Homer and Hemingway, Morris assembles a compendium of signs, symptoms, and interventions that gives context to an illness that literally annihilates a person’s sense of perspective. The takeaway is a durable resource for both those with PTSD and their loved ones." Booklist
Review
"An exploration of the enduring human cost of war....Drawing on neuroscience, psychology, biochemistry, history, poetry and fiction, he offers an insightful — and never self-indulgent — overview of the ‘ghost that haunts history…’.An eye-opening investigation of war's casualties." Kirkus
Review
“Former marine infantry officer Morris (Storm on the Horizon) blurs the line between clinical and creative literature in a lucid etiology of a ‘species of pain that went unnamed for most of human history... now the fourth most common psychiatric disorder in the United States.’...Morris offers balanced criticisms of the VA, and though he’s focused on American veterans, he attends to ‘rape, genocide, torture, and natural disaster’ as other causes of PTSD in civilians. Well-integrated autobiographical elements make this remarkable work highly instructive and readable." Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
Synopsis
In the tradition of Andrew Solomon and Kay Redfield Jamison, an examination of the impact of posttraumatic stress disorder on American life, by an ex-Marine and war correspondent who suffers from the condition.
About the Author
David J. Morris is a former Marine infantry officer. The author of Storm on the Horizon, an account of the battle of Khafji during the Gulf War (Free Press, 2004), he has covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for Slate, Salon and the Virginia Quarterly Review since 2003. His first dispatch for VQR, "The Big Suck: Notes from the Jarhead Underground" was included in the Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Foreign Policy, Der Spiegel, and elsewhere. He is a frequent radio and television guest on National Public Radio, The History Channel, The Jim Lehrer Newshour and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's "Background Briefing." In 2008, he was awarded a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as residencies at The MacDowell Colony and the Norman Mailer Writers Colony in Provincetown, Massachusetts. In 2009, he won the Staige D. Blackford Award for nonfiction writing from the Virginia Quarterly Review. He has an MFA in fiction from UC Irvine and lives in San Diego, California.