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The Year of Magical Thinking

By Joan Didion

(64)

| Paperback | 9781400078431

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Book Description

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 cContinue

Critics

Empty house blues

‘People who have recently lost someone have a certain look . . . one of extreme vulnerability, nakedness, openness,’ observes Joan Didion in this painful memoir, which describes the first year of her widowhood after 40-odd years of marriage. She shou ... (read full critics)

spectator published on Fri, 17 Sep 2010

The Year of Magical Thinking By Joan Didion

After 40 years of marriage, writer Joan Didion did not have a single letter from her husband, writer John Gregory Dunne. This was because, with rare exceptions, the pair was together 24 hours a day. They worked together in California hotel rooms on m ... (read full critics)

bookpage published on Wed, 15 Sep 2010

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6 Reviews

2 people find this helpful

This is quite a difficult book for me, probably because unlike Joan Didion, I haven't lost a loved one who is so closely related to and connected with me. I am unable to empathise with her, and her memoir reads like an old lady rambling on about the bits and pieces of her mundane life.
The bo ... (continue)

This is quite a difficult book for me, probably because unlike Joan Didion, I haven't lost a loved one who is so closely related to and connected with me. I am unable to empathise with her, and her memoir reads like an old lady rambling on about the bits and pieces of her mundane life.
The book records the author's thoughts and reminiscence in the year after her husband's sudden death during which their daughter also teetered on the brink of death. It's not an easy read because she was extremely distraught and barely maintained her sanity at that time. She was very confused and the narrative jumped back and forth between her old days with her husband and her more recent struggle with her daughter's recuperation. It's sometimes quite frustrating and you don't know what she was trying to get at.
Quite boring. Definitely not for somebody who is very organised and logical.

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Tracy W said on Jun 26, 2007 about the Others edition | Add your feedback

1 person find this helpful

Honest and raw. I gave this book to a good friend who recently lost her husband to cancer. She said it helped her tremendously. Sometimes to survive grief, you need to share it with someone...

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Michelle said on Oct 10, 2007 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

Weirdly not a depressing read

It should be depressing, to read about someone grieving for a loved one. But weirdly, this book isn't. It is the very powerfully told story of what happens to the author when she loses her partner of forty years to a massive heart attack.
There are no easy answers, no cheap comforts, no silver lini ... (continue)

It should be depressing, to read about someone grieving for a loved one. But weirdly, this book isn't. It is the very powerfully told story of what happens to the author when she loses her partner of forty years to a massive heart attack.
There are no easy answers, no cheap comforts, no silver linings, and yet the book is wonderfully, and strangely, uplifting. I think it's the lucidity of the narration that actually gives meaning to such tired clichés as "death is part of life" or "time heals everything". It may well be that writing this book was therapeutic for Joan Didion - I hope it was - but I'm pretty sure it has helped other bereaved people too.
An unexpectedly good book. Given the topic, I would never have picked it, had it not been warmly recommended.

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Hélène Wilkinson said on Oct 27, 2011 | Add your feedback

It was a must in New York, the winter of 2005. It was the year of loss and the year of magical thinking

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Altea said on Apr 27, 2009 | Add your feedback