“[Darian Leader] presents a thorough and thoughtful
review of what happens when the work of mourning (‘detaching ourselves from the
loved ones we have lost’) or melancholia (where what is lost is not so obvious
to the patient) goes undone….Leader
manages to bring not just a fresh look at Freud and grieving but adds rich
context from his own case studies and the culture around us, from John
Cleese’s hilarious eulogy for his Monty Python colleague Graham Chapman to Brokeback Mountain. It’s an astounding analysis of a pressing mental health issue that
melds old and new.”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“Leader makes an
important diagnosis, one that could be especially useful to an America that
often thinks of itself as very depressed, but may actually be extremely
melancholy.”
—BARNES AND NOBLE REVIEW
“Provocative and fascinating.”
—HILARY MANTEL, THE GUARDIAN
“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
“Darian
Leader has always been a terrific intellectual stylist, but The New Black, a profound meditation on grief and other modes of unhappiness,
always buoyed by a mysterious, rather wonderful sympathetic pressure, is
perhaps his wisest, most involving work.”
