The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

The Year of Magical Thinking (Vintage International)

by Joan Didion

From one of America's iconic writers, a portrait of a marriage and a life – in good times and bad – that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child. A stunning book of electric honesty and passion.

Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill. At first they thought it was flu, then pneumonia, then complete sceptic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later – the night before New Year’s Eve –the Dunnes were...

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Reviewed by jamiereadthis on

3 of 5 stars

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"Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined death. We misconstrue the nature of even those few days or weeks. We might expect if the death is sudden to feel shock. We do not expect this shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind. We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe their husband is about to return and need his shoes."

Also, I completely choked up when, upon closing the book after reading it straight through, I picked out the highlighted letters in the front title: J, O, H, N.

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  • Started reading
  • 1 April, 2009: Finished reading
  • 1 April, 2009: Reviewed