You know how sometimes you have a bad week that runs into a year or more where you just can't quite find your equilibrium? Okay, fine, you don't -- but Joan Didion knows what I'm talking about. In 2003, while their adult daughter was hospitalized and critically ill, her husband suffered a fatal heart attack. THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING is a memoir about the months that followed, and the ways she (coped or didn't) with the profundity of this loss and her daughter's recovery.
I know about that magical thinking. When my father died and we sold his green Chevy pickup, I would see another truck like it and check to see if he was driving. I went to the place where he had had his heart attack, thinking I might understand something more by standing in that parking lot one more time. Substitute "crazy" for "magical," and I had a year a lot like Joan's. If you've ever experienced the loss of someone you love, this book will touch some facets of grief you might have had trouble explaining, even to yourself.
~Michelle
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3 comments:
Did I hear her interviewed on NPR?
This makes me even more conscious of all the titles I've mentally decided to put on a to-read list and promptly forgotten. At least this one (and your last post) are written down for posterity!
I keep a list of wanna-reads on the computer or I go straight to the library's website and reserve something I hear about. Just getting ready to start Alice Sebold's newest, THE ALMOST MOON. You've probably heard her interviewed on NPR, too.
I'm glad to know somebody's reading these things!
~Michelle
Yeah, that library trick is a good one--Amy does that.
I still revert to the ol' sideways head judging-by-the-cover technique. Maybe I should grow up a little!
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