From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning
frankness about losing a daughter. Richly textured with bits
of her own childhood and married life with her husband, John
Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by
Joan Didion examines her thoughts, fears, and doubts
regarding having children, illness, and growing old.
Blue Nights opens on July 26, 2010, as Didion thinks back to
Quintana’s wedding in New York seven years before. Today
would be her wedding anniversary. This fact triggers vivid
snapshots of Quintana’s childhood—in Malibu, in Brentwood,
at school in Holmby Hills. Reflecting on her daughter but
also on her role as a parent, Didion asks the candid
questions any parent might about how she feels she failed
either because cues were not taken or perhaps displaced.
“How could I have missed what was clearly there to be seen?”
Finally, perhaps we all remain unknown to each other.
Seamlessly woven in are incidents Didion sees as
underscoring her own 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 profoundly moving.
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