Receiving the gift of Christine Lavin’s song yesterday made me think back to a really sweet and compassionate project the indomitable Ze Frank did some time ago. A fan, overwhelmed by anxiety, wrote to Ze asking him to put together a “nice sweet calmdown song.” He did, and the result is just great. YouTube version of the song after the jump, but I recommend the full narrative experience.
Daniel Smith (DSM-IV-TR 300.02: Generalized Anxiety Disorder) is an author, journalist, and editor.
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“I don’t know Daniel Smith, but I do want to give him a hug. His book is so bracingly honest, so hilarious, so sharp, it’s clear there’s one thing he doesn’t have to be anxious about: Whether or not he’s a great writer.”
—A.J. Jacobs, author of The Know-It-All and The Year of Living Biblically
“At last, that universally insidious and distressing experience of anxiety has been clarified. Through the elegant narrative of his personal history and his exposition of the scientific aspects, Monkey Mind does for anxiety what William Styron’s Darkness Visible did for depression.”
—Aaron T. Beck, professor emeritus of psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, and author of Anxiety Disorders and Phobias: A Cognitive Perspective
“You don’t need a Jewish mother, or a profound sweating problem, to feel Daniel Smith’s pain in Monkey Mind. His memoir treats what must be the essential ailment of our time — anxiety — and it does so with wisdom, honesty, and the kind of belly laughs that can only come from troubles transformed.”
—Chad Harbach, author of The Art of Fielding
“As a fellow sufferer, I balked at reading Monkey Mind, fearful that a book about anxiety might send me over the edge. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Daniel Smith maps the jagged contours of anxiety with such insight, humor, and compassion that the result is, oddly, calming. There are countless gems in these pages, including a fresh take on the psychopathology of chronic nail biting, an ill-fated ménage a trois—and the funniest perspiration scene since Albert Brooks’ sweaty performance in Broadcast News. Read this book. You have nothing to lose but your heart palpitations, and your Xanax habit.”
—Eric Weiner, author of The Geography of Bliss and Man Seeks God
“Daniel Smith has written a wise, funny book, a great mix of startling memoir and fascinating medical and literary history, all of it delivered with humor and a true generosity of spirit. I only got anxious in the last part, when I worried the book would end. Of course, it did, but Smith’s hopeful last chapters helped me cope.”
—Sam Lipsyte, author of Home Land and The Ask- More about the book
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