As has been discussed here many times before, I will be a devotee of Joan Didion always.

Her work speaks to me in a way that only she can, whether it is being transported to the Haight – years before I was born – to better understand San Francisco counterculture in 1967, or – more significant to my life and work – in reading her unflinching and achingly vulnerable works on the sudden loss of her husband, John, and then of her daughter, Quintana, two years later.

In these her grief is so raw at times, it is almost a physical presence to the reader.

It was because she writes in full Joan style of her grief, both with John dying suddenly, and then with Quintana’s protracted illness and death, that I needed to revisit these books now in working on my death book – so it seemed that a weekend with Joan, similar to the one with Carrie a few months back, was in order.

Accordingly, I listened to three of Joan’s works – the two that I needed to revisit, The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights, and then also – just because I hadn’t really gotten to enjoy it yet for a second time – the last collection of her essays that was released, Let Me Tell You What I Mean.

First, if you haven’t read The Year of Magical Thinking, absolutely do.

Written about the sudden death of her beloved John Dunne – and learning to live without him, after living and working together everyday for over forty years, all while their daughter Quintana was critically ill – this book is astonishing in its honesty and raw power. It is a National Book Award winner and it is Joan at her best.

The book that follows it, Blue Nights, is stunning in its own way – but it is a much different type of book on grief and loss.

Written about Quintana’s death – and also about Joan’s declining health – it came several years after the fact.

It was years before Joan was able to bring herself to write it.

It is not her usual style – she is shaken, understandably, her entire world upended – but it is still hauntingly beautiful, a book that remains in the mind of the reader long after it is finished.

It is a lovely tribute to Quintana.

(If you are interested, this is a touching profile of Joan, written during the release of Blue Nights:  joan didion profile.  )

After finishing Blue Nights – and though it was not really part of researching my book – to round out my weekend of Joan, I revisited her last collection of essays, Let Me Tell You What I Mean.

To a long-time reader of Joan, very few of these will be unfamiliar territory – though a couple of odd pieces, like one on Gamblers Anonymous called “Getting Serenity” that she wrote for a magazine in 1968, are unexpected.

Still, for this particular book, I would say that a Joan Didion enthusiast will want to have it.

I would also say that I would point a new reader to other – more “meaty” – essay collections to start (for example Slouching Toward Bethlehem or The White Album).

I have in my word-nerdy heart to do a full reading of all of Joan’s work in order and write it – both non-fiction and fiction – maybe next year. Right now, I have too many other projects that I am loving – and I am stoked for ones ahead as well. ❤

Now I’m off to do some book work (and also nap – #infernalflare 😦  ). It’s a busy week of writing as well as medical appointments (the spoonie writer life).

Be well, everybody. Take care of yourselves and each other.

Grace and Blessings.