I picked this one up because I’ve been experiencing anticipatory grief and this huge fear of loss and knew Didion wrote this after her husband John died in late 2003. She also talks about her daughter Quintana’s hospitalisations. After the book’s publication, her daughter died in early 2005.

I’ve seen people call this book a cross between a memoir and investigative journalism. I found it to be more of a private journal entry (multiple entries) of Didion’s after John’s sudden cardiac arrest and through Quintana’s (at the time) near-death health crisis. Didion seems to write not for an audience but for her own thorough examination of the timeline of events leading up to, and after, John’s death. It felt intimate: her questions to herself about her own sanity, the guilt and betrayal she felt, her fears and thoughts, and rumination on the time she and John had together. During this time, Quintana was severely ill with what was initially flu, then pneumonia, then septic shock. Whilst grieving, Didion was also wrestling with her fear of losing Quintana.

Interspersed between her intimate accounts are citations from medical journals and publications about Quintana’s condition as Didion tries to attain some control of life - she believes that information is control - giving this book its reputation of investigative journalism. Running parallel with these citations are Didion’s own internal “investigations” of John’s death: At what time exactly did John die? Did he know he was going to die? What was the last book he read? 

This book is short of 5 stars because I did not like her unconcerned, very frequent use of names of her (famous) friends (people have called it name-dropping); her use of street names in Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Malibu, New York, as if she’d assumed everyone would know where she was referring to. The whole thing came off very “out of touch with the rest of the world”, unaware of how not relatable her privileged life was. (Not everyone lives in the US!) 

I still think this book is incredible though. It dissected a marriage lived, death and illness, the intensity of memories, and the shallowness of sanity. Doesn’t really give practical advice or anything like that, but maybe it’ll make someone feel less alone.