Chapter 3 Summary

The suicide of yet another friend, Abbie Hoffman, prompts Styron to further explore the relationship between depression and suicide. Hoffman, a political activist made famous during the riots related to the Democratic Convention in 1968, seemed the picture of forward-thinking, singularly focused idealism. Hoffman's death came as a blow to all who knew him, particularly his family who could not accept suicide as an answer.

Another probable suicide case involved a poet, Randall Jarrell, who was killed when he was struck by a car in the middle of the night in North Carolina. Jarrell's widow and a coroner's jury agree that Jarrell's death was an accident but the poet had been hospitalized only a few weeks before for depression and had even slit his wrists while in the hospital.

The sense of shame surrounding these self-imposed deaths leads Styron to question the immediate lack...