The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

“As I rebuild the WLS archive with books I've read from 2011 through to 2025, I want to build a fully-fledged ecosystem of books I've read and recommend. I'd like to be able to reference and speak to any I've finished. For books I haven't reviewed (or can't entirely remember), please enjoy this brief questionnaire that can help you decide whether it's a read you'd like to pursue. Some of these are favorites I just haven't gotten around to fully reviewing yet—I'll explain in each description, but I hope this Q&A can be illuminating to you in the meantime.”

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.

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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 itself.

Why Did I Read This Book?

I read The Year of Magical Thinking after my grandmother Jane ("Mudder") passed away in July 2022. We were extremely close. I got her last "good day" to myself before her painful hospice period, cared for her while dying, and delivered her eulogy—one of the greatest privileges of my life.

“They say you're an average of the five people you spend the most time around, and if I am even one-fifth like my grandmother Jane, then I am very lucky.”

Even now, I wear a ring honoring her (and I'm partly convinced she's pulling strings up in heaven to manipulate certain portions of my life. She has a sneaky stubborn streak rivaling my own.)

The Year of Magical Thinking is lauded by many as "the" grief book. I ultimately disagreed and have a somewhat negative review of it, but of course, all books—especially related to so personal an emotion and experience—are subjective.

What's This Book About?

The Year of Magical Thinking is a memoir by Joan Didion about the year after her spouse had a heart attack and passed away. From the literal moment of to the shock to the ripple effects the loss caused for her, The Year of Magical Thinking is full of profound meditations.

Not to be like: Joan Didion went through it, but she absolutely did. My mixed thoughts on the book have nothing to do with the gravity of her situation; I absolutely feel for her.

What Do I Remember Most About It?

Maybe I'm a brat, but I really did not like Joan Didion in this. Here's my review from 2022:

Don’t hate me for this, but after reading praise for this book for years, I’m disappointed. The narrative is choppy and disoriented (fitting with the nature of grief) but small comments and name drops make it pretty damn clear that its fame is partly due to the author’s privilege and literary pedigree. It’s one of those books that, while fine, appears to be hailed as a work of genius because the author runs in academic circles but would be discarded if produced by someone off the street. It’s almost like: it needed to be either novel in terms of articulating a piercing new reflection or relatable in terms of human universality. Because of her blatant privilege and plain writing style, it felt like neither.

This book isn’t “stunning” or “electric,” and the descriptor of it that way is extremely, extremely generous. There are certain objective qualities I feel have to be present in order for something to be visceral, a certain edge and turn of phrase, and Joan Didion’s writing doesn’t stylistically fit. If people had described it as gentle, wise, or insightful, maybe I could give it to them. The writing was spare but not beautiful to me.

It got frankly repetitive. I feel so sorry for Joan Didion for what she’s been through but I just don’t think the work articulates anything that’s not already lived and experienced by hundreds of thousands of people every day — and not in a format that makes it valuable to read about either. It’s just…lackluster.

This is a case of mismatched expectations in that I expected elegant prose or striking insights or at least some clarity in organization but instead feel like I read a rough, rough draft or brain dump that wasn’t cohesive enough to be impactful. A lot of her travels and solutions were possible due to wealth and connections, which doesn’t degrade her feelings and thoughts on grief at all but did make me expect more from her book — like it coasted on her name rather than the content.

It somehow got a National Book Award, but I unfortunately think this is because of her social standing rather than the work. Don’t get me wrong; I’m incredibly privileged too. But that’s not reason enough for me to earn a National Book Award for a jumbled collection of thoughts that feels frankly like nothing. It’s a collection of name and facts, without even the personal element to make it feel resonant; it reads like a lot of logistics and summaries of the death process rather than moments that get at the heart of things.

In summary, I’ve read better and more beautiful books on grief and her elitist bubble was off-putting to me in a way that made me extremely distant from it. I understood why she needed to write it, but don’t think I needed to read it.

Who's It Best for?

Of course, Joan Didion does occupy a certain deity status in many literary circles. While I may view it as slightly undeserved, or at least occupying a level similar to other writers, I totally get the craving to read her and be part of a specific club of lit folk and understanding.

Many also derive some comfort from the particular shock and un-reality Didion describes in the wake of loss, so may gravitate towards this recommendation while dealing with bereavement themselves. Maybe I'm just biased because I already had a favorite that spoke to me: The Long Goodbye by Meghan O'Rourke.

If You Liked It, Read These Others:

the surreality of grieving / The Long Goodbye by Meghan O'Rourke

name-dropping (lol) / Just Kids by Patti Smith

simple end-of-life reflections / When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

Didion / Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

wild card / Before I Die by Jenny Downham