cover image Survival Stories: Memoirs of Crisis

Survival Stories: Memoirs of Crisis

. Doubleday Books, $24.95 (416pp) ISBN 978-0-385-48449-7

Rhett, a creative writing teacher who went through a crisis when her infant daughter suffered a serious illness, which she wrote about in Near Breathing, collects here 20 short memoirs written by others who have also lived through periods of adversity. These pieces by authors both well- and little-known have been excerpted from published books and magazine articles. All are well-crafted, expressive accounts of coping with life experiences that require endurance. While many, like William Loizeaux's haunting recollection of the short life of his five-month-old daughter (Anna: A Daughter's Life), deal with death or terminal illness, others, such as the passage from William Styron's Darkness Visible, detail a different kind of crisis, depression. In ""Black Swans"" Lauren Slater recounts her bout with obsessive-compulsive behavior that was helped but not cured by the drug Prozac. Reynolds Price (A Whole New Life) describes how he survived paralysis of the legs by mentally transforming himself into a different mind-set. This collection of personal stories may comfort, if not assist, those suffering hardship. (Aug.)