Late to the Party: The Year of Magical Thinking

I'm entering my Joan Didion era with #113

Should you ever hear me utter any of the following phrases, assume I have been abducted by aliens and replaced with a middle-aged doppelganger, and kindly alert the proper authorities:

• “One vote doesn’t make a difference.”

• “Should we get tickets to Coachella?”

• “I’m an early adopter.”

And it is this last one that is relevant here today, because unlike every other book-fluencer out there, I’m just as likely if not more to be reading and talking to you about older books for the first time as I am to be talking about the bright new hits. Partially this is due to the fact that I am always, like, number 48 on my library holds for the newest books, like will I EVER read Hello, Beautiful? All signs point to no.

But also this is because I think we often find the books we need when we need them, even if that’s years after a publish date. Hence why I’m both humbled but not ashamed to confess that I’m amongst the last carbon life forms to read and appreciate The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. Not only that, it is in fact the first time I have read ANY Joan Didion. Eek scream cry!

For many years, I have deliberately not read this book, a memoir-esque reflection on a year where her adult daughter had life-threatening health crises and her husband died suddenly, and how she was left to process the grief and mourning. I avoided it because I thought it would be a soggy, claustrophobic tearjerker of a book and I am a delicate, easily-bruised peach.

Your mileage may vary, as the internet likes to say, but for me this was almost the exact opposite of my expectations, and thus all the more powerful of a book about grief, fear, death, and the aftermath. Unlike, say, the crystalline, jagged pain of Crying in H Mart or the savage fury of H is for Hawk (both excellent and shattering books for grief, though quite prototypical low-lambers), The Year of Magical Thinking manages to not only illustrate Didion’s mindset with a lot of vulnerability and candor, but also have this sort of journalistically removed regard about it, recognizing her situation (illness, death) as both earth-shattering and also deeply common. There’s a beautifully bleached confusion and thinly veiled irritation about how stupid, common, and haphazard grief and pain are, and how we all think it won’t happen to us. And rather than some Greek epic moment, how we’re actually left to deal with the most mundane things in its aftermath.

Like so many books about a loved one’s death, this isn’t just about death but about love. Her marriage is portrayed as a true partnership, and I was so moved by her cross, blinking bewilderment about how her other half is so precipitously torn away, and how simply unfair, unacceptable and unthinkable that is even after it happened. How she does not come to “understanding” or “acceptance” of any kind, and the many small regrets she has about their interactions. I understand how this has become a classic memento mori. (Yes, turns out nearly a decade of readers are indeed correct!)

What’s really catapulted me into my Joan Didion era is her writing, of course, which feels both timeless but also … very of a different time? So taut, so minimalist, so leached of descriptive flourishes but so structurally rhythmic and powerful, and all with this smart, wry undercurrent. If you looked up “craft” in the dictionary I think Joan Didion would be gazing balefully back, holding a cigarette, silently admonishing you to remove an adverb. (I also physically wither thinking what Joan would have to say about italics, ellipses and wordplay. NO ONE ASKED, JOAN.)

So if you, like I, have not read Joan Didion yet. If you are processing grief. If you are seeking not solace but wisdom. Or if you are interested in writerly style - I would recommend it.

And if you have long been in your Joan Didion era, and are rolling your eyes about this soliloquy wherein I sound like a wondrous yet know-it-all college freshman just learning about colonialism, please let me know what to read next, and why you love her. Or if you only know her from the Celine ads and want to talk about that. It’s a safe space.

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You Guys. You Guys!

If you’ve been here a while, you know I link to Bookshop.org because I smugly thought that was much better for indie bookstores. And I guess it’s better than Amazon but apparently the Bookshop.org economics are terrible for indies and it’s a whole THING. I have inadvertently been supporting the Man this whole time. Caught in the web of late stage capitalism again! shakes fist at sky

So moving forward I’m going to try to link directly to indie bookstores, even though often their digital footprint is not great, like hello it is the year of our lord 2023. This week links to The Best Bookstore in Palm Springs, a new bookstore which has this awesome concierge thing where you can text a book title, picture, or just request to them (“beach read!” “mystery set in Italy!”) and they ship it right off. I ordered The Year of Magical Thinking and The White Album from the top of a hike and got it at home 48 hours later! We live in the future!

Anyway, feel free to nominate YOUR favorite indie bookstore and I will link to it in subsequent weeks. Not that anyone buys from these links but when we know better, we need to do better.

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And if Joan Didion is not your cuppa, as we say on this coronational weekend, check out the archive and also come back next week for something new and different! Thanks for stopping by - I appreciate every single reader, commenter, sharer, and obligated family member.