Wednesday, October 31, 2007

The Year of Magical Thinking

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Of the 8 attendees at October’s meeting of the Beaufort Book Club, only two felt that we had chosen a worthy book. Six people were of the opinion that the author did not have her heart in the writing of this book. There was some speculation that she wrote it merely to satisfy the demands of her publisher for a new work. Readinggroupchoices.com describes Didion’s tone in this book as “detached.” Perhaps it is that tone that struck a wrong note with our group. Some thought that the author “over-talked” about despair, pain, and the fear of losing a daughter. Whatever the reason, no one in the group wanted to read more books by this author.
The narrative of the book involves one year in which Joan Didion’s only daughter was hospitalized in septic shock. Her doctors induced a coma, and put her on life support. Returning from a visit to their child, Didion saw her husband of 40 years collapse with a heart attack and die. Didion spent the ensuing year trying to learn everything she could about the cause of his particular heart attack, as if the knowing could change the result. Later that same year, her daughter, now recovered from septic shock, collapsed and underwent brain surgery “to relieve a massive hematoma.” Again, Didion’s life was characterized by fear and grief, and the desire for medical knowledge that could put the new disaster into a context.
Two of the group members felt that the author really was writing in an involved manner and had a message. To them, she appeared to be working her way through the worst tragedy of her life by putting herself in her husband’s place mentally, emotionally, and physically in order to understand the extent of his peril. Those members felt that she had done an enormous amount of research to share with her readers as she, and potentially they, tried to understand how someone so alive one minute could be irrevocably gone in the next.
Submitted by David