The Gift of Adversity

June 24, 2013
Rosenthal made a name for himself in 1984 when he became the first psychiatrist to describe and diagnose “winter depression,” or Seasonal Affective Disorder. Since then, he’s written several books on that subject (e.g., Winter Blues) and on transcendental meditation (Transcendence). But readers expecting his newest to match the scientific rigor of his previous titles will be disappointed. This is by far Rosenthal’s lightest offering—essentially a memoir in vignettes, each capped with an inspirational (and often shopworn) aphorism (“Life is precious but precarious: treat it with the care and respect it deserves”). Luckily, Rosenthal’s story is an interesting one: from growing up Jewish in apartheid-era Johannesburg to struggling through med school, surviving a brutal stabbing, serving as a medical officer in the South African Army, getting caught up in a Ponzi scheme, and navigating the politics of Columbia University and the National Institute of Mental Health, his exploits are consistently engaging. However, chapters detailing the lives of others around him (like his family’s servants) feel out of place, and his efforts to wring a lesson from every anecdote become tiring. A more straightforward autobiography—sans the self-help and pop-science packaging—would’ve been more effective.