The Year of Magical Thinking

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion is a moving and compelling memoir. Didion recounts the year following the sudden death of her husband while their daughter is trapped in a medically induced coma. As she puts it, “Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends. The ordinary instant.” It’s a scary thought and happens all the time when you least expect it.

Her husband, John Gregory Dunne, also a writer, comes home from the hospital after visiting their daughter and John dies that evening from cardiac arrest. In that instant his life escapes him. Didion’s world as she knows it crumbles around her. Her husband is dead and their daughter is lying immobilized by a coma.

The book is one long stream of consciousness as Didion tries to gather the events after the death and how she struggles to live each day without the love of her life. On top of dealing with the grief and the process of mourning, her daughter will have another setback and be in the hospital for months at a time trying to recover. (I have no idea what is ailing the daughter. Not sure if I missed it or if Didion just never did a good job explaining.)

At times the book is hard to follow since Didion writes about people and events without giving much back-story regarding them. The core of the story is the emotions she evokes in the reader during this long heart-wrenching year of her life. She is vulnerable, lost and is trying desperately to hold onto her husband, expecting him at times to walk through the door and return their life back to normal. She analyzes over and over again the moments, days and weeks before the death to see if there was a way she could have prevented it. Through her sadness, there is also anger at John for leaving her.

Didion makes you really think that life can and does change in an instant. Unexpected events and turns happen and there is nothing that you can do to control or avoid it. And all that you are left with is the memories of your loved one and time that you two will never have again. It’s a feeling that I can’t imagine happening and would never want to experience. I don’t know if I could recover from a devastating loss like that.

The Year of Magical Thinking is a raw story written from the heart. It is an emotional read and one that I recommend.