NEWSLETTER

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Eight years ago, when Elizabeth Wurtzel began writing her memoir about being depressed at Harvard University, she wasn’t trying to be the poster child for glumness in America. But in the few months since her book has been out, that’s exactly what she’s become. Love it or hate it, people are freaking out over Prozac Nation. Critics say Wurtzel is overly self-involved and whiny, and they don’t get why anyone would want to read 300 pages of a privileged college girl histrionically complaining about how much her life sucks. Fans say it is an extremely detailed and realistic depiction of what it’s like to suffer from depression and that it should be required reading for psychiatric professionals and anyone who has ever battled with the disease or had antidepressants prescribed to them. We just think it’s fun to read about crazy teenagers being crazy.

And now we’re hearing rumors of Prozac Nation being optioned for a movie. Wouldn’t Winona Ryder be perfect for it? Maybe we’ll finally get to see her boobs!


Vice: You were one of the first people to ever go on Prozac, right?
Elizabeth Wurtzel: I was really fortunate that at Harvard Medical School there was a doctor who was experimenting with it. But I wasn’t part of the protocol, I wasn’t part of the experiment. By the time I went on it, it had just been approved by the FDA. People in Cambridge knew about it very early on, and I was put on it right when it became available. Then suddenly everyone was on it a few years later and it became out of control.

The funny thing was I worked at the Dallas Morning News summers during college, and I was working in the style section. I said to my editor, “I’m on this medication that’s going to become a really big thing, because it’s quite a breakthrough. You don’t know what it’s done for me.” And she said, “I just can’t believe that’s a story.” I thought this was going to be the biggest thing, and she just couldn’t take it seriously as a story.

That seems to be what most people have latched onto about the book. The title makes it seems like it’s a sociological study, rather than the personal story it is.
The epilogue is my attempt at trying to capture how people are thinking. But no one ever sets out to do something like be the voice of a generation, except for maybe Douglas Coupland and Generation X. But usually nobody sets out to do that. The original title of my book was I Hate Myself and I Want to Die, so it was totally personal. It still is totally personal. But I had an epilogue that was called “Prozac Nation,” and my editor said, “That’s what we should call the book.” So that made it seem like it was the story of a generation or the story of a group of people instead of just a personal story. That was kind of clever marketing, I guess.

You started writing Prozac Nation almost ten years ago, in 1986. How does it feel now that it’s finally come out?
I was working on it for so long. It was originally a book about Harvard; it wasn’t even about depression. But everything in it was about being depressed, so that changed it. I’m totally surprised at how it finally worked out. It’s weird when you’re in this really bad state of mind. I would be walking around Cambridge and I would ask myself, “Is this ever going to mean something? Is this ever going to be more than my stupid, miserable chemicals making me crazy?” There’s no way of knowing if someday it’s all going to make sense and be useful to you, or it’s just that you’re living through hell. I did wonder if there was going to be some use for all this misery. It turns out there was, but one is not always so lucky.

What have people been saying about it?
The book’s gotten so many mean reviews; people have positively hated it. But it got a really nice review from Michiko Kakutani in the Times, and that counts for a lot. Then it got a miserable review in the Times Book Review. So it’s gotten some wonderfully good press and some wonderfully bad press. But it’s definitely gotten attention.

You yourself have been getting a lot of attention as a Prozac poster child. What has that been like?
Public attention is just weird. What’s actually happening is not all that much—my life hasn’t changed that drastically. I thought it would. I thought something big would happen. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I thought I would feel transformed by the experience. But I still feel like myself. With any success, say if you suddenly win millions of dollars in the lottery, your life will change, but you’re not transformed. Transformative experiences come from within, not from without. It sounds sort of corny, but it’s actually unfortunately true.

Was writing Prozac Nation a cathartic experience?
There was a point where I finally finished it one odd night. I had been awake writing for a couple days and I hadn’t slept because I was just trying to get it finished. I finally wrote “The End” or something and I went to see Clerks at the Angelika and it was really weird—I’d forgotten to put my contacts in and didn’t have my glasses on, but I could still see perfectly. I was like, “Oh my God, something has happened. I was blind and now I see. I finished the book and a miracle has occurred.” I came home and was telling my roommate that my eyesight had improved since I finished the book a few hours before. I was trying to say that this completely transformative thing had occurred. Then I realized that, actually, my contacts had been in for a few days and I stopped noticing them. My eyesight hadn’t improved at all.

Funny!
When it was finally finished, I felt like, “OK, I can put that to rest. Now it’s on paper and it’s not such a horrible monster anymore.” It is something. It does make a difference. The harder part is that I continue to have an essentially depressive personality and I continue to be medicated, so the end wasn’t the end.

I’d always been told that I should pretend I’m fine. That was how I was brought up—my mother said, “Don’t let anyone know that you’re crazy.” And then you write it down and it comes out and it turns out that there are millions of people who feel the exact same way. That’s kind of a relief. You find out that actually it would have been good to talk about this all along and that it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

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Comments

Anonymous, on Nov 7, 2009 wrote: Ms Wurtzel would probably feel much better if she stopped shovelling cocaine up those over-priviledged little nostrils for a day or two.
	jiminy, on Nov 5, 2009 wrote: thanks. i’ve always wondered about people like her (and you, i suppose). i’ve never been that deep in depression and sometimes i wonder how much of it is real and how much is brought upon one’s self. anyway, nice to hear your side of living through it.
Anonymous, on Nov 2, 2009 wrote: maybe this bitch described what depression is like for kids who’s mothers never made them do anything for themselves. i, on the other hand, was severely depressed in college and still managed to make it to class and still managed to have a fucking job. i also never tried to overdose on fucking aspirin at a doctor’s appointment. it really seems that she just uses depression as an excuse to treat everyone in her life like shit, including the hot boy who took her to europe (she bitched at him the whole time) and her mother who worked two jobs in order to send her whiny ass to an ivy league school.
Anonymous, on Oct 31, 2009 wrote: "I hate myself and i want to die" is a title of nirvana song
Anonymous, on Oct 23, 2009 wrote: this book sucks dick
Anonymous, on Oct 21, 2009 wrote: "Was this post bumped or something? The movie already came out and it wasn’t Winona’s boobs people were looking for; it was Christina Ricci’s." WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSHHHHHHHHHHHH That’s the sound of this issue flying right over your head.
Anonymous, on Oct 21, 2009 wrote: i didn’t think she had boobs back then.
	KlonopinCocktail, on Oct 19, 2009 wrote: Was this post bumped or something? The movie already came out and it wasn’t Winona’s boobs people were looking for; it was Christina Ricci’s.
Anonymous, on Oct 19, 2009 wrote: i always thought real assholes were people who never considered killing themselves
Anonymous, on Oct 19, 2009 wrote: "um, editors, make that 1996...right?" wow, you really don’t get the point of this issue, huh?
Anonymous, on Oct 19, 2009 wrote: "I finished the book and a miracle has occurred.” I came home and was telling my roommate that my eyesight had improved since I finished the book a few hours before. I was trying to say that this completely transformative thing had occurred. Then "I realized that, actually, my contacts had been in for a few days and I stopped noticing them. My eyesight hadn’t improved at all." oh Elizabeth yer a genius dahling just genius!
Anonymous, on Oct 19, 2009 wrote: does anybody else besides me also hate her and want her to die?
Anonymous, on Oct 19, 2009 wrote: oh god over privileged baby winers
Anonymous, on Oct 19, 2009 wrote: this whole self deprecating bullshit is getting really old
Anonymous, on Oct 19, 2009 wrote: good god! even the photo of her is depressing me.
	Taylor, on Oct 19, 2009 wrote: She didn’t quite make the upstate NY part of her goal but there’s still time.
Anonymous, on Oct 19, 2009 wrote: oh i get it, the cover is supposed to be her mended wrists.
Anonymous, on Oct 19, 2009 wrote: Prescription pills get scarier and scarier. If you listen to Rx ads on TV now and really pay attention to the "side effects may include" portions, the stuff it might do to you is absolutely insane. "Side effects could include suicide and mass murder."
	Kirby Puckett, on Oct 19, 2009 wrote: Remember there was that man in KY that went seriously off his rocker on Prozac and killed all his coworkers. Shit is not to be trifled with.
Anonymous, on Oct 19, 2009 wrote: Damn, I didn’t think Prozac was out in 1986. I was a wee little thing when people started really losing their marbles on it.
	factorygirlwarhol, on Oct 16, 2009 wrote: i think everyone at one time or another has had a moment of "hating themselves and wanting to die." Its just basic instinct to feel overwhelmed and thinking thats a solution.
Anonymous, on Oct 16, 2009 wrote: um, editors, make that 1996...right?
Anonymous, on Oct 16, 2009 wrote: You’re making me want to vomit (to person below)
Anonymous, on Oct 14, 2009 wrote: her over privileged ass is making me want to vomit
Anonymous, on Oct 14, 2009 wrote: dont we all hate ourselves and want to die, i mean stop being so damn emo
Anonymous, on Oct 12, 2009 wrote: oh man, if they ever do a movie of it in a few year they should cast christina ricci
Anonymous, on Oct 12, 2009 wrote: prozac nation made me depressed. ironic.
Anonymous, on Oct 12, 2009 wrote: I don’t know how I’d feel about Christina Ricci playing me. This wasn’t too long after the Addam’s Family, right? She still had the body shape of a crackbaby penguin back then.
Anonymous, on Oct 12, 2009 wrote: In 1994 all press was good press unless your name was William Jefferson Clinton.
	turd to your mother, on Oct 12, 2009 wrote: this reminds me of a really shitty book i read called "the wrecking ball." don’t read it. this is way better.
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