Bibliograph

Killing the black dog, a memoir of depression, Les Murray

Type

Label

Killing the black dog, a memoir of depression, Les Murray

Language

eng

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Killing the black dog

Oclc number

650212495

Responsibility statement

Les Murray

Sub title

a memoir of depression

Summary

In 1988, shortly after moving from Sydney back to his birthplace in the rural New South Wales hamlet of Bunyah, Les Murray was struck with depression. In the months that followed, the "Black Dog" ruled his life. He raged at his wife and children, ducked a parking ticket on grounds of insanity and begged a police officer to shoot him rather than arrest him. For days on end he lay in despair, a state in which, as he puts it precisely, "you feel beneath help." --Killing the Black Dog is Murray's recollection of those awful days: brief, pointed, wise, arid full of beauty in the way of his poetry. The prose text-delicately balanced between personal and informativeg̮ives a glimpse of the imprint that depression can leave on a life. The accompanying poems show their roots in his crisisa̮ crisis from which, he reports toward the close of this poignant book, he has fully recovered. "My thinking is no longer jammed and sooty with resentment," he recalls. "I no longer wear only stretch-knit clothes and drawstring pants. I no longer come down with bouts of weeping or reasonless exhaustion. And I no longer seek rejection in a belief that only bitterly conceded praise is reliable." --Killing the Black Dog is a crucial chapter in the life of an outstanding poet. --Book Jacket

Table Of Contents

Killing the black dog -- Afterword -- Black dog poems -- Index of first lines -- Index of titles

Classification