The New Black - by Darian Leader (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Fifty years ago, the terms mourning and melancholia were part of the psychological lexicon. Today, in a world of rapid diagnoses, quick cures, and big pharmaceutical dollars, the catch-all concept of depression has evolved to take their place. In The New Black, Darian Leader argues that this shift is more than semantic; rather, it speaks to our culture's complicated relationship with loss, suffering, and grief.

Part memoir, part cultural analysis, Leader draws on examples from literature, art, cinema, and history, as well as case studies from his work as a psychologist, to explore the unconscious ways our culture responds to the experience of loss. He visits a bookstore in search of studies on mourning, and, finding none, moves on to the fiction and poetry sections, where he finds countless examples of mourning in literature. Moving from historical texts of the Middle Ages, to Freud's essays, to Lacan, to Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, Leader provides an innovative tour of mourning and melancholia and our culture's struggle to understand them.

Review Quotes

"An engrossing and wise book, The New Black is not only an illuminating read, it convinces us that this level of intelligence and ideas is essential today." --Hanif Kureishi, New Statesman

"There are many self-help books on the market. Though not advertised as one, The New Black is a book that might actually help." --The Independent

About the Author

Darian Leader is a psychoanalyst practicing in London. He is the author of Why Do Women Write More Letters Than They Post? and the coauthor, with David Corfield, of Why Do People Get Ill?