Day 472, Quasi-Quarantine: Messy, Over-Wrought "Prozac Nation" Is An Important Millennial Precursor

"They will have to rearrange the order of the cosmos, they will have to end the cold war, they will have to act like loving, kind adults who care about each other, they will have to cure hunger in Ethiopia and end the sex-slave trade in Thailand and stop torture in Argentina. They will have to do more than they ever thought they could if they want me to stay alive. They have no idea how much energy and exasperation I am willing to suck out of them until I feel better. I will drain them and drown them until they know how little of me there is left even after I've taken everything they've got to give me because I hate them for not knowing."

The late Elizabeth Wurtzel's memoir is at turns compelling and tedious. The raw, soul-baring tone of "Prozac Nation" is often waylaid by the density of repeated mistakes and the over-wrought sensation that she is not owning her actions. 

As an unreliable narrator, Wurtzel conceals and obscures facts from her origin story, with a hazy chronology contributing to the work's hazy tone. 

"Instead, all they had to offer me was their fear: My mom feared the outside world and my dad feared me and my mom; we lived in a paranoid household in which everyone defined his own enemies and pretty soon everyone was implicated."

While there is a notably brave element in sharing her decade-long bout with atypical depression, the book's lack of editing and focus -- while consistent with her disease -- can make it an overwhelming read. 

"That's the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds daily, that it's impossible to ever see the end. The fog is a cage without a key."

An undeniable level of respect is due for helping to contribute to the conversation surrounding depression, but the subtitle of "Young and Depressed in America" does not always feel that it captures the growing pains and personal failings of a lost young woman.

"I knew if I told the truth, it would work out. Yes, it set me free. Turns out, that's  how it works. I trust people. I trust myself. And now memoir is a category. Now there is reality TV. And Facebook. And oversharing. I started a joke. That started the whole world crying."