Happy Birthday to Elizabeth Wurtzel

Today is the 50th birthday of Prozac Nation author Elizabeth Wurtzel.  Because this book has had such an influence on me, I feel I should honor the author on her birthday.





I seem to have a lot on common with Wurtzel. Even though I didn't go to Harvard,  I have found many other similarities. Her date of birth and mine were both on a Monday. In one chapter of the book, she recalls her 20th birthday in 1987 and that it fell on a Friday.  My 20th birthday, in 1991, was on a Friday as well.  This seems as eerie as the many similarities people have found between Lincoln and Kennedy. Did you know both were assassinated on a Friday, for one thing?

Incidentally, I  was not aware of these similarities  between Wurtzel and me until just recently.  I had felt discouraged about writing my story because it seemed too similar to hers.  But as loyal readers of my blog may know, others have convinced my story is different. And in Saturday's blogpost, I
 mentioned something from the book I had not remembered until I ordered a copy of it, something I decided to include in my new epilogue.

In the epilogue to her iconic memoir, Wurtzel wrote:

“…The fact that depression is ‘up in the air’ can be both the cause and the result of a level of societal malaise that that so many feel.  But once someone is a clinical case, once someone is in a hospital bed or in stretcher headed for the morgue, his story is absolutely and completely his own. Every person who has experienced a severe depression has his own sad, awful tale to tell, his own mess to live through. …” 

And this from another depression memoir mentioned in my post on Saturday: 

Willow Weep for Me: A Black Woman's Journey Through Depression :

The author's editor at the paper where the author, Meri Nana-Ama Danquah, worked,  had suggested she write about her depression, then asking if she had read William Styron's book on depression (I haven't read Styron's book, BTW), saying if Danquah were to write a piece, she would have not repeat what was already written saying that would be hard to do. Danquah's sarcastic reply was:

“Yeah, right. Like Styron and I would have the same angle on anything. We had the same illness; the similarities end there. The way I did depression was a-whole-nother bag of beans. I’m a single black mother about half a paycheck away from the government cheese line.” 


And I looked ahead to see what day my 50th birthday will be on in 2021. Yes, a Monday.  How weird is that?

Ms. Wurtzel was recently interviewed by Liz Phair  for Interview Magazine.

Sadly, right now I cannot find any news about the author's birthday today. But I knew and am wishing the author a happy birthday.
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