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The Year of Magical Thinking
 

The Year of Magical Thinking

by Joan Didion

From one of America’s iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion. Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: 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.

Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their... (read more)

Top tags: memoir,  grief,  non-fiction,  nonfiction,  death and dying (all tags)

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Amazon Reviews (5)
 

Most Helpful Reviews

Liked It

2 of 2 members found this review helpful.
Tinky
  • Rated 5 stars

““The Year of Magical Thinking,” Joan Didion’s riveting memoir of grief, is a moving example of an artist writing at the peak of her powers in order to crawl out of the abyss. As she struggles to cope with the merciless sudden death by cardiac arrest of her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne, and the inexplicable protracted illness of their only child Quintana (who, unimaginably, died soon after this book was published), Didion’s famously razor-sharp eye turns inward to create a memoir...”

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Didn’t Like It

1 of 2 members found this review helpful.
Katy D
  • Rated 1 stars

“This was the first of her books I had read. Very disappointing. I found her celebrity name-dropping to be distracting as well as the endless descriptions of all the places she had lived near the beach in CA. I did not find much real reflection in it all. I had expected much more and will probably not read her again.”

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Community:
  • Rated 3.772506 stars
Amazon:
  • Rated 4 stars
  

Newest Comments

  • Malia D

    malia d said:

    “A very moving book. Joan Didion never becomes completely unhinged by the sudden death of her husband, and we never see her really break down as she honestly and openly describes her actions and thought processes as she copes with his loss and the severe illness of her only child. Rather, she is unmoored by his absence, as if the biggest feature in the map of her life were suddenly erased and she has problems recognizing how to be in the world. The process is slow and difficult and is by no means contained within this book; the year of magical thinking may well turn into a decade.”

    posted Tuesday, June 24 2008
  • Iffit Q

    iffit q said:

    “First part was good but then it was just too... i dont know .... boring.....”

    posted Saturday, April 19 2008
  • Jane C

    jane c said:

    “I didn' really want to read this; I thought it would be too sad. Yes, it is sad, but I find Didion's descriptions of her feelings very moving. I can understand her way of thinking about her husband, "if I don't go through his clothes, he'll be back". And her mantra, "you're safe, I'm here", provides a false sense of normalcy. Jane
    ”

    posted Sunday, February 24 2008
  • waddly

    waddly said:

    “I liked this book, it was inspirational and sad.”

    posted Thursday, February 7 2008
  • Ann H

    ann h said:

    “This book scared the hell out of me and put me in my own magical state of stitching back together my life with my husband. My husband survived a major heart attack - the same "widowmaker" that killed Joan Didion's husband. I saw my future self in Didion's journey to acceptance. Most profound for me was her statement that John knew how he was going to die. That's almost too much knowledge, and obviously she denied it until after he was gone. In so doing I think she unwittingly isolated him. After his first heart attack he knew something she didn't want to know and wouldn't or couldn't share with him. I think she realized too late that he was lonely. The lesson I take is to accept and believe my husband's new near-death reality and accompany him. We are all walking toward death and hopefully living with joy along the way. But some, like Didion's husband and mine, have jumped ahead. Didion taught me how important it is to try to keep up.”

    posted Thursday, January 17 2008
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