The Evil Hours
A Biography of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
“An essential book” on PTSD, an all-too-common condition in both military veterans and civilians (The New York Times Book Review).
Post-traumatic stress disorder afflicts as many as 30 percent of those who have experienced twenty-first-century combat—but it is not confined to soldiers. Countless ordinary Americans also suffer from PTSD, following incidences of abuse, crime, natural disasters, accidents, or other trauma—yet in many cases their symptoms are still shrouded in mystery, secrecy, and shame.
This “compulsively readable” study takes an in-depth look at the subject (Los Angeles Times). Written by a war correspondent and former Marine with firsthand experience of this disorder, and drawing on interviews with individuals living with PTSD, it forays into the scientific, literary, and cultural history of the illness. Using a rich blend of reporting and memoir, The Evil Hours is a moving work that will speak not only to those with the condition and to their loved ones, but also to all of us struggling to make sense of an anxious and uncertain time.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Former marine infantry officer Morris (Storm on the Horizon) blurs the line between clinical and creative literature in a lucid etiology of a "species of pain that went unnamed for most of human history... now the fourth most common psychiatric disorder in the United States." Morris draws from his own traumatic Iraq War experiences and ancient "historical antecedents" such as the Sumerian Lamentation of Ur and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. He moves on to postbellum America, reminding us that many of the Wild West's most famous gunslingers were Civil War veterans, then to WWI, the "first conflict where war neuroses were officially identified and treated," and finally the Vietnam War, the "single most important event in the history of psychological trauma." The book's second half describes and assesses the various ways in which PTSD is currently treated, using Morris's own treatment as an example (he found yoga most effective). Morris offers balanced criticisms of the VA, and though he's focused on American veterans, he attends to "rape, genocide, torture, and natural disaster" as other causes of PTSD in civilians. Well-integrated autobiographical elements make this remarkable work highly instructive and readable.
