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The Year of Magical Thinking | 
 enlarge | Author: Joan Didion
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy Used: $2.47
You Save: $11.48 (82%)
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Rating:  506 reviews
Sales Rank: 2439
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.8
ISBN: 1400078431
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781400078431
ASIN: 1400078431
Publication Date: February 13, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: May have some marks or highlights.
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Product 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 child.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 501 more reviews...
 Explains a Magical Marriage December 26, 2008
While reading Joan Didion's memoir, which is centered on John Gregory Dunne's sudden death, my immediate reaction was that the appreciative audience is limited. Further reading proved me wrong. Like with me, the book will resonate with those who have absorbed the grief caused by unexpectedly losing a beloved and feeling the interminable leak of that profound loss. And, because Didion infuses the book with other well known literati and the celebrity haunts where they meet, there is a lot of interesting material for the well-read and well-traveled. But, this love story is written so honestly, so openingly that even those of us outside the circle of the ueber-rich will find common ground with her. That Didion doesn't have the financial worry that often accompanies sickness and death adds power to the experience: regardless of relative wealth and well-placed connections, she cannot direct the outcome for either of the people she holds most dear. While 'A Grief Observed' is a stronger treatment of the subject, this is a good companion guide to surviving an unimaginable turn in one's perfect life.
 good service December 21, 2008
This is a book worth reading and the service from the seller was excellent. Immediate response and mail service was good. Don't miss this book.
Terrific memoir, painting a picture of grief and loss December 1, 2008
I thought Ms. Didion's description of the feelings, sounds, emotions that we experience when we've had a tragic loss were astonishingly accurate. When faced with great tragedy and grief, it is remarkable that we can even get out of bed in the morning.
So Beautiful November 23, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I've read this book a couple of times now and I am certain I will revisit it every couple of years because it is amazingly well written and emotionally so real. I read a few of the negative reviews of this book and was kind of mystified by them, the main criticism is that segments of the book are disjointed and draft-like, but that is actually partly the point of the book. This element reflects how loss of this magnitude jars human thoughts and behavior; in this case, how it forced a pattern of repetitive and irrational thoughts into her incredibly intelligent and normally rational mind. That within her head, was a confrontation between her past and present realities. It really imparts the nature of grief, external life goes on and seems almost just the same, so the adjustment really in one's head. It seems that Joan Didion wrote this to cope and almost get out of her own head.
This is all secondary to the best aspect of the book, which is that she intersperses these beautiful memories of her experiences with John and Quintana, and what one gets from this is the sense that Joan Didion had a fantastic life, that she had a true equal and partner with John. In reading about her past I felt that the author has had the kind of life that people want for themselves (I definitely envy the life she's lead), it was not perfect but her relationships and experiences were incredibly meaningful and satisfying. One gets a sense of how much she has lost. Indeed, because of this, the book isn't depressing, but bittersweet. The chapters balance her appreciation for having had such an incredible relationship, with an acute sadness over the loss her life-partner.
The point is, this book is incredible.
Before the Moving On Begins November 21, 2008
This is a memoir told by writer Joan Didion on life immediately after the death of her husband, John Gregory Donne. (The book has been adapted into a one-woman broadway play as well.)
In the book, Joan Didion writes as if she's thinking out loud. You can tell that the story is written for herself as if therapeutic and not for the sole purpose of selling a book, full of honesty and humility. When I was reading it, I wondered about the author's purpose for writing, thinking that it must be (for lack of a better word) self-serving in some way. So that she can remember? So that she can chronicle her life? So that in this way she can bring her husband back? There are many times throughout the novel that she says she keeps expecting him to come back, although she knows that it defies all logic. One point of irony in the novel is that she says that she and her husband always discussed matters and that she had an overwhelming desire to discuss this issue with him.
Joan Didion retells the events from memory trying to locate the exact details, searching for meaning, putting the puzzle together. It is so important to her to not "betray" the story, or fail the accuracy of the story. She looks deeply into everything that her husband did leading up to the day of his death. She searches for symbols that she seemed to have missed. It is her belief that everything is connected.
From the moment her husband passes away, her daughter has complications and is in the hospital. Ms. Didion is so active with her daughter's situation that she doesn't have time to fully mourn. She says in the middle of the book that she has been in a period of grievance, not mourning. What I feel is absolutely tragic is that her daughter dies not long after, although this information is not told in the book.
Didion describes what she calls a vortex that takes her mind back to a place when she had her family. The dictionary defines "vortex" as a "place or situation regarded as drawing into its center all that surrounds it." She finds that everything is connected ultimately to her old life with her husband and daughter. Like playing the Kevin bacon game (in which you can start out with Kevin bacon and make connections with movies and ultimately end with Kevin Bacon in the end.)
This book obviously can connect with those who have lost a loved one, but I also think that it can give a new perspective to those who haven't.
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