INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An extraordinary work from the author of The Year of
Magical Thinking and Blue Nights In November 1999 Joan Didion began seeing a psychiatrist
because as she wrote to a friend her family had had “a rough few years.” She described the
sessions in a journal she created for her husband John Gregory Dunne. For several months
Didion recorded conversations with the psychiatrist in meticulous detail. The initial sessions
focused on alcoholism adoption depression anxiety guilt and the heartbreaking complexities
of her relationship with her daughter Quintana. The subjects evolved to include her work
which she was finding difficult to maintain for sustained periods. There were discussions about
her own childhood—misunderstandings and lack of communication with her mother and father her
early tendency to anticipate catastrophe—and the question of legacy or as she put it “what
it’s been worth.” The analysis would continue for more than a decade. Didion’s journal was
crafted with the singular intelligence precision and elegance that characterize all of her
writing. It is an unprecedently intimate account that reveals sides of her that were unknown
but the voice is unmistakably hers—questioning courageous and clear in the face of a
wrenchingly painful journey.
