Will's Choice

On March 11, 2001, seventeen-year-old Will ingested a near-fatal dose of his antidepressant medication, an event that would forever change his life and the lives of his family. In Will’s Choice, his mother, Gail Griffith, tells the story of her family’s struggle to renew Will’s interest in life and to regain their equilibrium in the aftermath.

Griffith intersperses her own finely wrought prose with dozens of letters and journal entries from family and friends, including many from Will himself. A memoir with a social conscience, Will’s Choice lays bare the social and political challenges that American families face in combating this most mysterious and stigmatized of illnesses. In Gail Griffith, depressed teens have found themselves a formidable advocate, and in the evocative and fiercely compelling narrative of Will’s Choice, we all discover the promise of a second chance.

Author Biography

Gail Griffith has spent most of her career as a coordinator, fundraiser, and advocate for international humanitarian programs. She is a member of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and has served as the patient representative to the Food and Drug Administration’s advisory committee on possible links between antidepressant medication and suicidal thinking in teenagers. She lives in Washington, D.C.