The Year of Magical Thinking

Throwing in a total rando title, The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.

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Why I Read This Book/How I Heard About It

Once again, this is a little embarrassing...but I honestly knew nothing about Joan Didion except that Rory references her on an episode of The Gilmore Girls and, since Rory is such an avid reader on that show, I sometimes add books/authors that she mentions to my "Want To Read" list on Goodreads, purely out of curiosity.

Basic Summary

From the back of the book:

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 itself."

First Impressions

I hate to say that the first thing that leaped out at me was how annoying the narrator's voice was - so hoity toity and irritating. But, I pushed through it so I could hear the content of the book.

Obviously, this is the world's most depressing read.

Final Thoughts

Apparently, Joan Didion is one of America's iconic writers...and I still don't fully understand why because this is the only book I've read so far that she's written. This really was a very personal memoir of the worst point in her life, when she lost her husband and daughter in the most shocking ways possible. My heart broke for her, as I tried to imagine the one-two punch she must have endured. Like God's cruelest joke. Yet, so many experience death in just this way, with more than one at a time, one right after another. Merciless.

Having recently lost my father-in-law, my grandma, my dad, and one of my closest friends within a span of a few years, I empathize with Didion's attempts at "magical thinking" (which is really just denial when you get down to it).

She repeatedly tries to make sense of the idea that one day, you're loved one is there...and the next day, they are gone. It's inconceivable. Which is why we resort to "magical thinking". To help us cope. I understand those crazy-yet-so-real thoughts, where you hope your deceased loved one will just walk back through the front door one day and say, "Oh hey, I'm back!" Like their death was some elaborate prank and everything can just go back to normal now. I understand talking to them out loud, even while you know that they aren't there anymore.

I don't know...I think this is just a really human way to handle catastrophic loss. There has to be an easing into pain this deep, especially if the tragedy is so unexpected and sudden. It makes sense to me that our brains would try to protect us in this way.

I guess I'd recommend reading this in a time when you are a little more out of the clear of heavy grief. What I mean is...not right after your father's funeral or while you're in the midst of a long battle with a terminal disease that's about to claim the life of someone close to you.

Not that grief ever fully goes away...but I find that if I'm that close to it and I read another person's account like this...it's easier for me to slip into anger over small details. Like I get angry that the death they are describing isn't exactly like the one I am in the middle of...or that I can't relate at all because the person writing has a story that's even a tiny bit off from what I'm experiencing. It's tempting, in that moment, to throw the baby out with the bath water and think, "This person doesn't know what I'm going through. This book sucks."

We all experience loss differently and see our situation from different angles at different points in time. When I'm in the throes of grief, I only want to hear from someone who is experiencing it exactly like I am. Does that make sense? I don't know...maybe that's my own sort of magical thinking. At any rate, I say...read it in a time when you feel you've more or less cleared your last death experience...in between deaths, if you will. As if anyone can predict that...

Rating on Goodreads

I rated this book 3 out of 5 stars.

My rating method:

• I rarely rate books 5 stars. I save this for the absolute best books I've read. You know the ones...the ones that you can't get out of your head, even after you've finished them. The ones you think about for weeks afterwards.

• If a book is really, really good, I'll give it 4 stars. If you see a 4-star rating from me, I'd definitely recommend it to you to read.

• If it's just OK, it gets 3 stars. Basically, it means I could take it or leave it. I'd probably read it again because it wasn't terrible. But not like a favorite or anything.

• If I rate it 1 or 2 stars, I would not recommend anyone read it. It either didn't hold my interest or I couldn't relate to the characters/plot.