“From one of our most powerful writers, a work
of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Richly textured with bits of her
own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and
daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by Joan Didion examines her thoughts,
fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness, and growing old. Blue
Nights opens on July 26, 2010, as Didion thinks back to Quintana’s wedding in New York seven years
before. Today would be her wedding anniversary. This fact triggers vivid
snapshots of Quintana’s childhood—in Malibu, in Brentwood, at school in Holmby Hills. Reflecting on her
daughter but also on her role as a parent, Didion asks the candid questions any
parent might about how she feels she failed either because cues were not taken
or perhaps displaced. “How could I have missed what was clearly there to be
seen?” Finally, perhaps we all remain unknown to each other. Seamlessly woven
in are incidents Didion sees as underscoring her own age, something she finds
hard to acknowledge, much less accept. Blue Nights—the long, light evening
hours that signal the summer solstice, “the opposite of the dying of the
brightness, but also its warning”—like The Year of Magical Thinking before it,
is an iconic book of incisive and electric honesty, haunting and profoundly
moving.”
