Author Elizabeth Wurtzel’s groundbreaking biography about depression Prozac Nation inspired many other confession-style biographies. Ms. Wurtzel died from metastasized cancer on January 7, 2020. Here is a selected list of biographies that discuss mental health or addiction held in the University of Iowa Libraries collections.
Prozac nation: young and depressed in America / Elizabeth Wurtzel, 1994
Tweak: growing up on methamphetamines / Nic Sheff, 2007
The mother knot: a memoir / Kathryn Harrison, 2004 (anorexia)
The recovering: intoxication and its aftermath / Leslie Jamison, 2018
RX: a graphic memoir / Rachel Lindsay, 2018 (bipolar disorder, insurance struggles)
The years of silence are past: my father’s life with bipolar disorder / Stephen P. Hinshaw, 2002
Will’s choice: a suicidal teen, a desperate mother, and a chronicle of recovery / Gail Griffith, 2005
Marbles: mania, depression, Michelangelo, and me: a graphic memoir / Ellen Forney, 2012
The center cannot hold: my journey through madness / Elyn R. Saks, 2007 (schizophrenia)
Getting off: one woman’s journal through sex and porn addiction / Erica Garza, 2018
A house on stilts: mothering in the age of opioid addiction- a memoir / Paula Becker, 2019
Liar: a memoir / Rob Roberge, 2019 (substance abuse)