The Year of Magical Thinking (2005)

by Joan Didion

Other authors: See the other authors section.

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10,159	285	674	(3.85)	390
Biography & Autobiography. Self-Improvement. Nonfiction. HTML: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER �?� NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER �?� From one of America�??s iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion that 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 powerful 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 it… (more)

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DetailMuse: Both are beautiful explorations of magical thinking during grief -- Didion's in reaction to the death of her husband in older age; Wood's in reaction to the death of her father in childhood.
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Best Biographies, Autobiographies and Memoirs (78)

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Showing 1-5 of 271 (next | show all)

I was given this book by someone who loved it. It is a memoir of the year following the author’s husband’s death and while her only child is seriously ill. I had been unfamiliar with the famous author prior to reading the book.
The book was well-written, and it was touching to see the author try to cope with her devastating loss. But it was not for me, and I found myself skimming over certain sections. (

)

AnnieKMD | Sep 25, 2023 |

Easily the best work I’ve ever read by Didion. Some of her quirks are there to delight or frustrate familiar readers, but unlike much of her writing—this isn’t a detached, vapid, all action-off-page kind of work. This work clearly, often beautifully, shows how the mind operates in times of grief, morning, and loss. The writer’s clear explanation and detailed mental processing can certainly help any reader. I wasn’t a big fan of her only-style, emptiness aesthetic, but this has to be her masterpiece and it is an important contribution to this field. (

)

ProfH | Sep 6, 2023 |

Joan Didion's personal story of dealing with grief helped me define some of my own. (

)

schoenbc70 | Sep 2, 2023 |

A touching story of life, death, love and companionship. (

)

AmandaPelon | Aug 26, 2023 |

My first book by this author and I found her story to be gut-wrenching. It seemed like she was in the room telling me about her pain. So well written, incredibly emotional and such raw feelings on the pages. The retelling of the loss of her husband was such a personal account. I hope it gave her some peace after writing it. (

)

tinkerbellkk | Aug 17, 2023 |

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▾Published reviews

5 reviews

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thingScore 100

Essayistic and concise, seeking external points of comparison, trying to set her case in some wider context.

added by KayCliff | editNew York Review of Books, Julian Barnes (Apr 7, 2011)

added by melmore | editLondon Review of Books, Michael Wood (pay site) (Jan 5, 2006)

The book is, as promised, extraordinary. The Year of Magical Thinking is raw, brutal, compact, precise, immediate, literate, and, given the subject matter, astonishingly readable.

added by melmore | editSlate.com, Peter D. Kramer (Oct 17, 2005)

Though the material is literally terrible, the writing is exhilarating and what unfolds resembles an adventure narrative: a forced expedition into those "cliffs of fall" identified by Hopkins.

added by DorsVenabili | editThe New York Times, Robert Pinsky (Oct 9, 2005)

The Year of Magical Thinking , though it spares nothing in describing Didion's confusion, grief and derangement, is a work of surpassing clarity and honesty. It may not provide "meaning" to her husband's death or her daughter's illness, but it describes their effects on her with unsparing candor. It was not written as a self-help handbook for the bereaved but as a journey into a place that none of us can fully imagine until we have been there.

added by melmore | editWashinton Post, Jonathan Yardley (Oct 2, 2005)

▾Other authors

» Add other authors (7 possible)

Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Joan Didion	—	primary author	all editions	calculated
Caruso, Barbara	Narrator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Jonkheer, Christien	Translator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed

▾Series and work relationships

Has the adaptation

The Year of Magical Thinking {drama} by Joan Didion

Has as a student's study guide

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion | Summary & Study Guide by BookRags

▾Awards and Honors

Awards

Audie Award (Finalist – Biography/Memoir – 2006)

The Economist Best Books (2005.11)

National Book Award (Winner – Nonfiction – 2005)

National Book Critics Circle Award (Finalist – Autobiography/Memoir – 2005)

Prix Médicis (Essai – 2007)

Pulitzer Prize (Finalist – Biography or Autobiography – 2006)

Distinctions

Booklist Editor's Choice (Arts and Literature – 2005)

Christian Science Monitor Best Book (Memoir – 2005)

New York Times Best Books of the Year (2005)

New York Times bestseller (Nonfiction – 2005)

San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year (Nonfiction – 2005)

Time Magazine's Best Books of the Year (Non-fiction, 4)

Village Voice Favorite Books (2005)

Notable Lists

The 100 best books of the 21st century by The Guardian (40)

100 Books to Read in a Lifetime

100 Must-Read Memoirs by Bookriot

1000 Books to Read Before You Die

30 Years of 30 Books

The 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years

I 50 Libri del Decennio

55 Nonfiction Books to Read in a Lifetime

The Best Memoirs of a Generation

Books of the Decade: The 50 books that defined the decade (2000)

The Guardian's 100 Best Nonfiction Books of All-Time (2)

UC Berkeley Summer Reading List (2006)

Vulture's the Best 100 Books of the Century

Главные книги XXI века по версии Republic

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▾Common Knowledge

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Canonical title

Original title

The year of magical thinking

Alternative titles

Original publication date

People/Characters

Important places

New York, New York, USA

Los Angeles, California, USA

Important events

Related movies

Awards and honors

Epigraph

Dedication

This book is for John and for Quintana

First words

Life changes fast.

Quotations

I remember thinking that I needed to discuss this with John.

Confronted with sudden disaster we all focus on how unremarkable the circumstances were in which the unthinkable occurred, the clear blue sky from which the plane fell, the routine errand that ended on the shoulder with the car in flames.

Last words

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Disambiguation notice

Publisher's editors

Blurbers

Original language

Canonical DDC/MDS

Canonical LCC

▾References

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (3)

File:TheYearOfMagicalThinking.jpg

The Year of Magical Thinking

Wikipedia:Reference desk archive/Humanities/February 2006

▾Book descriptions

Biography & Autobiography. Self-Improvement. Nonfiction. HTML:

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER �?� NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER �?� From one of America�??s iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion that 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 powerful 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 it

▾Library descriptions

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Book description

Didion's journalistic skills are displayed as never before in this story of a year in her life that began with her daughter in a medically induced coma and her husband unexpectedly dead due to a heart attack.

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