Reminiscent of William Styron’s Darkness Visible but with an appealing vein of humor, a magnificently written memoir of riding the depression roller coaster, choosing electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), and finding the path to happiness—with fascinating side-journeys into the nature of identity and memory.

Growing up in a hyper-educated, artistic, eccentric family, Ted Scheinman, the son of a medical doctor and an English professor, spent much of his precocious childhood as a writer and performer—and his greatest performance was as someone who was happy. He recognized his depression early and recorded its effects in a series of tragicomic journals, always hoping that the ritual of doing so would palliate if not cure.

While the clouds occasionally parted, particularly during Ted’s years of intellectual questing at Hotchkiss and Yale—and, fleetingly, through his emergence as a successful journalist—his gloom kept returning, seemingly more debilitating each time. Eventually, a series of emotional plunges deposited Ted, at age thirty-five, in a psych ward in Washington, D.C. There, he began an intensive course of electroconvulsive therapy—considered by most a treatment of last resort. The controversial procedure saved his life, but it also exacted a price: he was now missing important pieces of his memory.

By turns deeply gripping, startlingly perceptive, understatedly hilarious, and heartbreakingly poignant, particularly in Ted’s depiction of his romantic relationships, Jolt asks: How do our families shape who we are, for good and ill? How much of our character is ingrained versus sculpted by circumstances? How can we adapt when our memory fails? Perhaps most critically: what are we willing to sacrifice to have a chance at life?

Ultimately, this exceptionally engrossing memoir brings hope to anyone who has ever tried desperately to regain their footing and rejoin the world.