I have to say that my latest literary choices have not quite lived up to expectations. I trudged through Franzen's Freedom only to be relatively disappointed in the result. Then, at the recommendation of many, I jumped head first into Joan Didion's memoir The Year of Magical Thinking. Didion is an accomplished writer whose career has offered her the opportunity to turn her recall of the grief process into another job opportunity. The book won the National Book Award so it certainly seemed like a safe bet. After almost 40 years of marriage to her husband ( John Gregory Dunne , a similarly accomplished writer), Didion finds herself widowed when her husband collapses from a suddent heart attack. To add complications to her grief, Joan's adult daughter, Quintana, is hospitalized with a life threatening septic infection at the time of her husband's death and she continues to deal with Quintana's recovery and relapse throughout the course of the book. O...
My periodic musings on life.