The TV reporter’s struggles with depression and the suicide of his father, whose own father killed himself, prompt this incisive, highly personal investigation
James Longman is an English broadcast journalist who was the BBC’s man in Beirut before joining US network ABC, where he is now chief international correspondent. He has reported from wars in Syria and Ukraine and covered Covid lockdowns, the queen’s funeral and the 2018 cave rescue in Thailand.
On screen, Longman is the type of British journalist that Americans love: eloquent, charismatic and unflappable. Behind the composure, however, runs a tragic legacy of mental illness. In 1996, when he was nine, Longman’s father John, an artist who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia in his 20s, died after setting fire to his Notting Hill flat. Longman’s paternal grandfather also killed himself, and his mother, too, has endured mental health struggles. Longman’s own experiences with depression from his mid-20s onwards have prompted him to wonder: “Does sadness run in families? Have I inherited mental illness?”
The Inherited Mind by James Longman is published by Hyperion Avenue (£25). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
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