At college in my junior year,
I had a nervous breakdown,
  or so I told Dr
Coluccio in a long letter
  I typed at my desk
in Eliot House. Anxious, exhausted,
   fretful, I explained
that I needed to quit school, certainly
   to get away from Harvard.
I spoke in desperation: I
   couldn’t sleep or study
or write; my life was impossible,
   painful, insupportable
I didn’t tell him I’d broken
   with Freda, then gone with
Rosalind and split up with her, then
  Priscilla. I typed,
making many errors, and intended
  to hand-deliver my letter
right then, but when I finished,
   I felt overwhelmingly sleepy.
         I woke after two hours
  entirely calm and cheerful
and quickly crumpled the letter.

Send Letters To:

The Editor
London Review of Books,
28 Little Russell Street
London, WC1A 2HN

letters@lrb.co.uk

Please include name, address, and a telephone number.

Read anywhere with the London Review of Books app, available now from the App Store for Apple devices, Google Play for Android devices and Amazon for your Kindle Fire.

Sign up to our newsletter

For highlights from the latest issue, our archive and the blog, as well as news, events and exclusive promotions.

Newsletter Preferences