A memoir of the year following the sudden death of Didion's husband, John Gregory Dunne, at their dinner table, written while their daughter Quintana lay gravely ill. Didion anatomizes grief, memory, and the mind's 'magical thinking' as it resists the fact of loss.
Books mentioned in The Year of Magical Thinking (38)
The Forsaken Merman by Matthew Arnold: “There was a day or two when I relied on Matthew Arnold, "The Forsaken Merman": Children's voices should be dear...”
Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden: “There were days when I relied on W. H. Auden, the "Funeral Blues" lines from The Ascent of F6: Stop all the clocks...”
The Ascent of F6 by W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood: “the "Funeral Blues" lines from The Ascent of F6”
Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day by Delmore Schwartz: “Avid its rush, that reeling blaze!... —DELMORE SCHWARTZ, "Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day"”
Rose Aylmer by Walter Savage Landor: “repeating to myself the last two lines of "Rose Aylmer," Walter Savage Landor's 1806 elegy”
East Coker by T. S. Eliot: “Susanna Moore read a fragment from "East Coker," the part about how "one has only learnt to get the better of words..."”
A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis: “the journal C.S. Lewis kept after the death of his wife, A Grief Observed”
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann: “Thomas Mann's description in The Magic Mountain of the effect on Hermann Castorp of his wife's death”
Alcestis by Euripides: “One day it seemed important that I reread Alcestis... I did reread Alcestis.”
Blind Man by Roxana Robinson: “There was a story by Roxana Robinson, called "Blind Man." In this story, a man is driving in the rain at night...”
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath: “the "Guest Editor" program, memorialized by Sylvia Plath in The Bell Jar”
The Song of Roland: “the essential characteristic of death as it appears in the Chanson de Roland is that the death... gives advance warning of its arrival”
Etiquette by Emily Post: “That passage is from Emily Post's 1922 book of etiquette, Chapter XXIV, "Funerals"”
The Way to Cook by Julia Child: “She had inscribed a copy of The Way to Cook and given it to him.”
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable by E. Cobham Brewer: “a phrase defined by Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable as "delightful intercourse of short duration and rare occurrence"”
Five Days in London: May 1940 by John Lukacs: “a heavily marked copy of John Lukacs's Five Days in London: May 1940”
The Hour of Our Death by Philippe Ariès: “Philippe Ariès, in The Hour of Our Death, points out that the essential characteristic of death...”
Death, Grief, and Mourning by Geoffrey Gorer: “The English social anthropologist Geoffrey Gorer, in his 1965 Death, Grief, and Mourning, had described this rejection of public mourning”
Bereavement: Reactions, Consequences, and Care by Institute of Medicine: “From Bereavement: Reactions, Consequences, and Care, compiled in 1984 by the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine”
The Merck Manual: “according to The Merck Manual, 16th Edition, could still typically present with "anxiety symptoms such as initial insomnia..."”
Clinical Neuroanatomy by Stephen G. Waxman: “This book was by Stephen G. Waxman, M.D., chief of neurology at Yale–New Haven, and was called Clinical Neuroanatomy”
Mourning and Melancholia by Sigmund Freud: “The act of grieving, Freud told us in his 1917 "Mourning and Melancholia," "involves grave departures from the normal attitude to life."”
Play It as It Lays by Joan Didion: “I remembered having used such an incident in my second novel, Play It As It Lays.”
A Book of Common Prayer by Joan Didion: “The book from which he read was a novel of my own, A Book of Common Prayer, which he happened to have in the living room...”
Salvador by Joan Didion: “We had done this. Quintana and Friends, Dutch Shea, Jr., and The Red White and Blue for John, Salvador, Democracy, and Miami for me.”
Democracy by Joan Didion: “Salvador, Democracy, and Miami for me.”
Miami by Joan Didion: “Salvador, Democracy, and Miami for me.”
Quintana and Friends by John Gregory Dunne: “We had done this. Quintana and Friends, Dutch Shea, Jr., and The Red White and Blue for John”
Dutch Shea, Jr. by John Gregory Dunne: “Quintana and Friends, Dutch Shea, Jr., and The Red White and Blue for John”
The Red White and Blue by John Gregory Dunne: “Dutch Shea, Jr., and The Red White and Blue for John”
True Confessions by John Gregory Dunne: “It was a first edition copy of True Confessions... In fact it was John's own copy”
Nothing Lost by John Gregory Dunne: “He had finished a novel, Nothing Lost, which was caught in the predictable limbo of a prolonged period between delivery and publication”
Leftover Life to Kill by Caitlin Thomas: “I remember despising the book Dylan Thomas's widow Caitlin wrote after her husband's death, Leftover Life to Kill.”
Books that mention The Year of Magical Thinking (1)
On James Baldwin by Colm Tóibín: “listed among Didion's works discussed alongside Salvador and Blue Nights”