 "Darkness Visible" also helped raise awareness for depression, which was relatively unknown at the time.First published in December 1989 in "Vanity Fair", the book grew out of a lecture that Styron originally delivered at a symposium on affective disorders at the Department of Psychiatry of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.Through the employment of anecdotes, speculation, and reportage, Styron reflects on the causes and effects of depression, drawing links between his own illness and that of other writers and public figures.