From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter.
Richly textured with bits of her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by Joan Didion examines her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness, and growing old.
Blue Nights opens on July 26, 2010, as Didion thinks back to Quintana's wedding in New York seven years before. Today would be her wedding anniversary. This fact triggers vivid snapshots of Quintana's childhood - in Malibu, in Brentwood, at school in Holmby Hills. Reflecting on her daughter but also on her role as a parent, Didion asks the candid questions any parent might about how she feels she failed either because cues were not taken or perhaps displaced. `How could I have missed what was clearly there to be seen?' Finally, perhaps we all remain unknown to each other.
Blue Nights - the long, light evening hours that signal the summer solstice, `the opposite of the dying of the brightness, but also its warning' - like The Year of Magical Thinking before it, is an iconic book of incisive and electric honesty.
- ISBN10 0307267679
- ISBN13 9780307267672
- Publish Date 1 November 2011 (first published 1 January 2011)
- Publish Status Remaindered
- Out of Print 11 October 2023
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Random House USA Inc
- Imprint Random House Inc
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 188
- Language English