The year of magical thinking

Summary: [In this book, the author] 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 only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic 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 just sitting down to dinner after visiting the hospital when John Gregory Dunne suffered a massive and fatal coronary. In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of forty years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LAX, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma. This ... book is Didion's attempt to make sense of the "weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness ... about marriage and children and memory ... about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself."--Jacket.

Item details

ISBN: 1400078431
ISBN: 9781400078431
ISBN: 9780739469675
ISBN: 0739469673
ISBN: 9781400043149
ISBN: 140004314X
Physical Description: 227 pages ; 21 cm.
regular print
print
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.
Badges:
- Top Circs: 3 / 5.0
- Most Copies: 4 / 5.0

Contents / Notes

Awards Note:

National Book Award, Nonfiction, 2005

BookBrowse Ruby Award for Most Popular 2005 Book by Category Winner, 2006

Find similar items by subject

Subject:

Didion, Joan
Dunne, John Gregory 1932-2003 Death and burial
Didion, Joan Marriage
Didion, Joan Family
Novelists, American 20th century Family relationships
Novelists, American 20th century Biography
Journalists United States Biography
Mothers and daughters United States
Widows United States Biography
Loss (Psychology)
Grief
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Dunne, John Gregory 1932-2003 Death and burial
Romanciers américains 20e siècle Relations familiales
Romanciers américains 20e siècle Biographies
Journalistes États-Unis Biographies
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grief
mothers
Didion, Joan
Dunne, John Gregory 1932-2003
Death and burial of a person
Mothers
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Marriage
Mothers and daughters
Novelists, American
Novelists, American Family relationships
Widows
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Didion, Joan 1934-2021
Dunne, John Gregory 1932-2003
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DIDION, JOAN 2 NOVELISTS, AMERICAN--20TH CENTURY--FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS. 3. DUNNE, JOHN GREGORY active 1932--DEATH AND BURIAL. 4. NOVELISTS, AMERICAN--20TH century--BIOGRAPHY. 5. JOURNALISTS--UNITED STATES--BIOGRAPHY. 6. MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS--UNITED STATES. 7. WIDOWS--UNITED STATES--BIOGRAPHY. 8. DIDION, JOAN--MARRIAGE. 9 DIDION, JOAN--FAMILY. 10. LOSS(PSYCHOLOGY) 11. GRIEF. 1 TITLE
Didion, Joan
Dunne, John Gregory
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Currently available copies

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