Want a NOOK? Explore Now
A New York Times Notable Book
From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter.
Richly textured with memories from her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by Joan Didion is an intensely personal and moving account of her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness and growing old.
As she reflects on her daughter’s life and on her role as a parent, Didion grapples with the candid questions that all parents face, and contemplates her age, something she finds hard to acknowledge, much less accept. Blue Nights—the long, light evening hours that signal the summer solstice, “the opposite of the dying of the brightness, but also its warning”—like The Year of Magical Thinking before it, is an iconic book of incisive and electric honesty, haunting and profound.
Blue Nights is a major literary event: It is Joan Didion's evocative sequel to her 2005 National Book Award winning memoir The Year of Magical Thinking. In this moving memoir, she reflects on her daughter's short life, her own imperfect parenting, and the sudden illuminations that we gain by growing older.
— Edward Ash-Milby
Didion (We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction, 2006, etc.) delivers a second masterpiece on grief, considering both her daughter's death and her inevitable own.
In her 2005 book,The Year of Magical Thinking, the much-decorated journalist laid bare her emotions following the death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne. The same year that book was published, she also lost her adopted daughter, Quintana Roo, after a long hospitalization. Like Magical Thinking, this bookis constructed out of close studies of particular memories and bits of medical lingo. Didion tests Quintana's childhood poems and scribblings for hints of her own failings as a mother, and she voices her helplessness at the hands of doctors. "I put the word 'diagnosis' in quotes because I have not yet seen that case in which a 'diagnosis' led to a 'cure,' " she writes. The author also ponders her own mortality, and she does so with heartbreaking specificity. A metal folding chair, as she describes it, is practically weaponized, ready to do her harm should she fall out of it; a fainting spell leaves her bleeding and helpless on the floor of her bedroom. Didion's clipped, recursive sentences initially make the book feel arid and emotionally distant. But she's profoundly aware of tone and style—a digression about novel-writing reveals her deep concern for the music sentences make—and the chapters become increasingly freighted with sorrow without displaying sentimentality. The book feels like an epitaph for both her daughter and herself, as she considers how much aging has demolished her preconceptions about growing old.
A slim, somber classic.
In 2003's Where I Was From, Joan Didion tells of a long wagon journey on which her great-great-grandmother buried a child, gave birth to another, contracted mountain fever twice, and sewed a quilt, "a blinding and pointless compaction of stitches," that she must have finished en route, "somewhere in the wilderness of her own grief and illness, and just kept on stitching."
Throughout the book, Didion ruminates on her female forbears, women "pragmatic and in their deepest instincts clinically radical, given to breaking clean with everyone and everything they knew," even their own dead babies. It was Didion's adopted daughter Quintana, at age five or six, who first made all this heredity start to seem remote. And if the author harbored any lingering doubt about whether she shared her ancestors' breaking-clean tendencies, the shattering effect of Quintana's death in 2005, at age 39, must have swept it away. In her new memoir, Blue Nights, about life before and after the loss of her daughter, Didion writes, "When we talk about mortality, we are talking about our children."
This book may be Didion's harshest, most self-questioning book yet; it's definitely her most beautiful. Like the stitches on her grandmother's quilt, it covers the same material again and again, swooping down on its author's grief with dogged, needle-like precision, from countless angles that don't lead her anywhere soothing. "What if I fail to love this baby?" Didion worried as she carried the newborn Quintana home from the hospital. By the time of Blue Nights, the questions have changed. What if I didn't love her right, the author interrogates herself. What if I didn't love her enough? How could Didion "have missed what was so clearly there to be seen" — "the startling depths and shallows of her expressions, the quicksilver changes of mood," the list of "Mom's sayings" that Quintana posted on the garage wall: "Brush your teeth, brush your hair, shush I'm working"? "Was I the problem?" she wonders. "Was I always the problem?"
Didion dwelt in Where I Was From on her female forbears' tendencies "toward slight and major derangements" and "apparently eccentric pronouncements," traits she'd once seen as biologically endemic. Blue Nights, by contrast, fixates on nurture, on the terrible possibility that a mother's neuroses might be contagious. At the age of five, Quintana called a state psychiatric facility to "find out what she needed to do if she was going crazy." Around the same time, she called Twentieth Century Fox "to find out what she needed to do to be a star." She dreamed of a "Broken Man" who threatened to lock her in the garage, and she wrote a novel "just to show you" that told "why and how Quintana [not just the name of its author but also its protagonist] died and her friends became complete burnouts at the age of eighteen." Once she was born, Didion admits, "I was never not afraid." And she all but blames herself for Quintana's nightmares. "[M]y fear of The Broken Man [was] as unquestioning as her own," she says.
Throughout these struggles, Quintana's psychiatric diagnosis remained frustratingly protean. Manic depression became OCD; OCD became something else, something Didion can't remember now, but something that ultimately gave way to a succession of other conditions before "the least programmatic of her doctors settled on one that actually seemed to apply": borderline personality disorder, a diagnosis that didn't lead to a cure, only "a confirmed, and therefore an enforced, debility." Depressed and anxious, Quintana drank too much. She wished for death as she lay on her sitting room floor: "Let me just be in the ground, she had kept sobbing. Let me just be in the ground and go to sleep." She implored Didion not to read Auden's "Funeral Blues" at her father's funeral. "Like when someone dies," she once told her mother, "don't dwell on it."
Even as she torments herself with memories of Quintana's troubles, Didion recognizes that child-rearing standards change. While parents measure their success now by "the extent to which we manage to keep our children monitored, tethered, tied to us," her own World War Two–era childhood emphasized independence over schooling and friends. She roamed the grounds of a psychiatric hospital, eavesdropped on the patients, and put them into stories. "There was a war in progress," she recalls. "That war did not revolve around or in any way hinge upon the wishes of children. In return for tolerating these...truths, children were allowed to invent their own lives. The notion that they could be left to their own devices — were in fact best left so — went unquestioned."
In the title essay of her 1979 book The White Album, Didion recalls a psychiatric evaluation of her own, conducted in 1968 (two years after she and her late husband, John Gregory Dunne, brought Quintana home from the hospital), that said her Rorschach responses "emphasize[d] her fundamentally pessimistic, fatalistic, and depressive view of the world around her. It is as though she feels deeply that all human effort is foredoomed to failure, a conviction which seems to push her further into a dependent, passive withdrawal." Rather than admitting to or denying these claims, or trying to trace the source of her (mild) breakdown, Didion jokes that "an attack of vertigo and nausea does not now seem to me an inappropriate response to the summer of 1968."
In Blue Nights Didion brings a compelling and paradoxical blend of skepticism, acceptance, and astringent detachment to bear on these trends in psychology — and how they both reflect and shape our own self-images. As in most of her personal writing, she's highly attuned to these kinds of recursive absurdities, and I would guess she's also more than a little bit amused by them. But, like the very funny Flannery O'Connor, she depicts the ridiculous with a poker face. And, as in O'Connor, the comic element of human existence is always the obverse of something much darker.
In interviews Didion acknowledges that it was a fluke — a flu — that killed Quintana, not mental illness, not alcoholism, not anything she herself did. But as she sees her own health fail, as she tries to "maintain faith (another word for momentum)," follow the doctor's instructions, and "collect encouraging news," as she spends whole days in frigid waiting rooms pondering "this one question, this question with no possible answer: who do I want notified in case of emergency?" she sustains herself by "memoriz[ing] her child's face." Didion's implicit subject has always been the storyteller's conundrum: that in standing far apart enough from life to digest it and to evoke it, the writer forgets how to live in real life. For Didion, to remember Quintana is to tell stories in which she's not a good enough mother to Quintana, but to stop telling these stories is to run the risk that Quintana "will fade from my touch. Vanish. Pass into nothingness." We tell ourselves stories in order to live, she once wrote. If Quintana were to disappear, Didion implies, she herself would stop existing.
Maud Newton's writing has appeared in numerous publications. Her blog is maudnewton.com.
Joan Didion was born in Sacramento, California, and now lives in New York City. She is the author of five novels and eight previous books of nonfiction. Her collected nonfiction, We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live, was published by Everyman's Library in 2006.
Born in Sacramento, Didion attended the University of California at Berkeley, graduating in 1956 with a degree in English. After college, she moved to New York to work for Vogue magazine. Recognized immediately as a talented and insightful writer, she contributed frequently to such diverse publications as Mademoiselle, Esquire, The New York Times, and National Review; and in 1963 she published her first novel, Run River. She and Dunne were wed in 1964; and for the remainder of their married life, they divided their time between New York and L.A., collaborating frequently on Hollywood scripts while developing separate and distinguished literary careers.
In December of 2003, Dunne died of a massive heart attack, while the couple's recently married daughter, Quintana Roo, lay comatose in a New York hospital. Didion spent the next year blindsided by a grief so profound it propelled her into a sort of madness. She chronicled the entire experience in The Year of Magical Thinking, a spellbinding memoir of bereavement written in the spare, elegant prose that has become a hallmark of her work. Published in 2005 (scant months after Quintana's death), this elegiac book -- Didion's most personal and affecting work to date -- became a huge bestseller. It received a National Book Award and was turned, two years later, into a successful Broadway play starring Vanessa Redgrave.
Since her 1963 debut, Didion has alternated between novels and nonfiction, proving herself a wry and astute observer of America's shifting political and cultural landscape. Written nearly a decade apart, her two essay collections Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968) and The White Album (1979) are considered classics of 1960s counterculture. Moreover, the author's identity as a seventh-generation Californian has colored her writing in profoundly significant ways. For our money, no contemporary American writer has examined more deftly the unique role of "place" in everyday life.
"My first (and only, ever) job was at Vogue. I learned a great deal there – I learned how to use words economically (because I was writing to space), I learned how to very quickly take in enough information about an entirely foreign subject to produce a few paragraphs that at least sounded authoritative."
"I would like my readers to know that writing never gets any easier. You don't gain confidence. You are always flying blind."
Didion and her husband, John Gregory Dunne, co-wrote seven screenplays, including: The Panic in Needle Park (1971), Play It As It Lays (1973), A Star Is Born (1977), True Confessions (1982), Hills Like White Elephants (1990), Broken Trust(1995) and Up Close and Personal (1995).
She is the sister-in-law of author Dominick Dunne and the aunt of actor/director Griffin Dunne.
Excerpted from Blue Nights by Joan Didion Copyright © 2011 by Joan Didion. Excerpted by permission of Random House Large Print, a division of Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
1. Blue Nights is a deeply elegiac, heartrending book. What are some of its most emotionally powerful moments? What makes these moments so moving?
2. Didion’s style in Blue Nights is clipped, austere, emotionally restrained. What is the effect of the short sentences, short chapters, and paragraphs that often consist of a single sentence? In what ways is Didion’s tone and style appropriate to her subject?
3. A number of italicized statements recur throughout Blue Nights, consisting most often of things that Quintana said—“Let me just be in the ground”; “Like when someone dies, don’t dwell on it”; “After I became five, I never ever dreamed about him.” What is the emotional effect of these repetitions? Why would Didion keep repeating these lines?
4. Didion writes: “My cognitive confidence seems to have vanished altogether. Even the correct stance for telling you this, the ways to describe what is happening to me, the attitude, the tone, the very words, now elude my grasp. The tone needs to be direct. I need to talk to you directly, I need to address the subject as it were, but something stops me.... Am I no longer able to talk directly?” [p. 116]. Is the tone of Blue Nights direct or indirect? Why might Didion find it difficult to be as direct as she wants to be about her subject?
5. Didion quotes Euripides: “What greater grief can there be for mortals than to see their children dead” [p. 13]. In what ways does Blue Nights bear out this truth? Of all the griefs that humans might be forced to endure why is this the most painful?
6. What kind of child was Quintana? What was most remarkable about her and most painful about her loss?
7. Thinking back to Quintana’s wedding, Didion writes: “I still see from that wedding day at St. John the Divine: the bright red soles on her shoes. She was wearing Christian Louboutin shoes, pale satin with bright red soles. You saw the red soles when she kneeled at the altar” [p. 69]. What is the effect, on Didion and on the reader, of these minute but vividly remembered details? What other details seem especially poignant?
8. Didion says she knows very few people who think of themselves as having succeeded as parents, that most parents instead “recite rosaries of failures, our neglects, our derelictions and delinquencies” [p. 93]. What does Didion most regret about her relationship with Quintana? What does she see as her failures?
9. Why might Quintana have seen her mother as “frail,” as needing her care, rather than the reverse? [p. 101].
10. Didion says that she had initially wanted to write a book about children but that after she started it became clear her true subject was “the failure to confront the certainties of aging, illness, death” [p. 54]. What does the book say about these essential human themes? Does Didion fail to confront them?
11. Blue Nights is filled with digressions—about movie shoots, changes in parenting styles over the past fifty years, her own work in the theatre, Sophia Loren, etc.—but keeps circling back to the death of her daughter and to her own illness and aging. Why might Didion have chosen this kind of structure, rather than a more straightforward chronological approach?
12. Didion describes her own illnesses and medical emergencies in a remarkably matter-of-fact way. Why is this understated approach more powerful than a more dramatic rendering might be?
13. What is so powerful about Didion’s quandary over who to list as an emergency contact on a medical form? What reveries does this question lead to?
14. Why does Didion end the book with a series of single, short sentences? Does she achieve here the kind of emotional directness she earlier felt was beyond her?
vickytren
Posted November 4, 2011
I Also Recommend:
I read a lot of self-help, psychological and true stories books, so I was interested to give blue nights a try and was not disappointed. Great Read!
8 out of 10 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted January 16, 2012
"Blue Nights" starts out promising, but by chapter two it reads like a diary-turned-novel. Too many question marks, which makes the tone unnecessarily shrill. I hate to say it (because it feels disrespectful to the memory of Ms. Didion's husband and daughter), but the writing is boring. Definitely do not recommend.
5 out of 7 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted November 15, 2011
poor sentence structure. Bounces around. It was difficult to finish.
5 out of 9 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted December 27, 2011
While somewhat similar in tone to "The Year of Magical Thinking", this book felt much more stream-of-consciousness, much more disjointed in places. Still, the magic of Didion's writing and insights shine through, even when it is somewhat muddled. Far from linear, it jumps back and forth in time, sometimes repeating stories, just in a slightly different context or at a slightly different angle. It's hard to tell if the somewhat disjointed nature of this book is the result of a mother's grief, Didion's advancing age, or a combination of the two.
Still, as I said, the magic of her writing shines through. I definitely recommend the book - just don't expect a straight point A to point Z narrative
4 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted November 17, 2011
I read The Year of Magical Thinking five times. I just finished Blue Nights. It was amazing. Didion's commentary on her grief over poor Quintana's passing and her commentary on aging are genuine and forthright. I cannot imagine having the strength to face what she faced in such a short time. Yet she faces her struggles honestly and head on. I hope I have her courage and sense of self when and if I make it to 76 or 77.
4 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted November 13, 2011
When I first started reading this book, I was a little put off by the overly wordy or sometimes incomplete sentences. But I stuck with it and am so happy I did. This book is beautiful, compassionate, and wise and touched my heart in many ways. I actually felt like the author was writing the book for me. It is a gift to anyone who has suffered loss.
4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted September 14, 2012
She did not get to the point of how her daughter died. She did a lot of name dropping of famous people she knew and hung around but they did not seem to offer any support after her daughter died.
2 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted December 29, 2011
Beautifully written. Couldn't put it down.
1 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted December 18, 2011
Another wonderful book. Well done. Worth evey penny to read a master at the top of her game.
1 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted November 14, 2011
A must read for Didion fans
1 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted February 8, 2013
Have not read it yet but I want to.
0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.ElaineJK
Posted December 14, 2012
This was a quick read because it had such continuity that I didn't want to put it down. She shares the emotions and thoughts that most of us have when losing those close to us. Sadness without bitterness.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted November 19, 2012
Does gangnam style
0 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted November 19, 2012
Comes in and does the dance to gangman style
0 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted November 24, 2012
OPPA GANGNAM STYLE!!!! WHOOO!!!! (Ham loves this song more than any other flying pig) HAHAHAHAHAHA I LUV DA SONG!!!! YYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
0 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted February 17, 2012
I felt she was conversing with me at lunch. It left me wishing she were my friend.
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted December 7, 2011
insanely great
0 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted April 5, 2012
No text was provided for this review.
Anonymous
Posted December 26, 2011
No text was provided for this review.
Anonymous
Posted June 24, 2012
No text was provided for this review.
Overview
A New York Times Notable Book
From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter.
Richly textured with memories from her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by Joan Didion is an intensely personal and moving account of her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness and growing...