The Year of Magical Thinking

By: Joan Didion

Narrated by: Barbara Caruso

Length: 5 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

National Book Award, Nonfiction, 2005

"Life changes fast....You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends." These were among the first words Joan Didion wrote in January 2004. Her daughter was lying unconscious in an intensive care unit, a victim of pneumonia and septic shock. Her husband, John Gregory Dunne, was dead. The night before New Year's Eve, while they were sitting down to dinner, he suffered a massive and fatal coronary. The two had lived and worked side by side for nearly 40 years.

The weeks and months that followed "cut loose any fixed idea I had about death, about illness, about probability and luck...about marriage and children and memory...about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself."

In The Year of Magical Thinking, Didion explores with electric honesty and passion a private yet universal experience. Her portrait of a marriage, and a life, in good times and bad, will speak directly to anyone who has ever loved a husband, a wife, or a child.

Listen to Joan Didion's full-hour interview with Charlie Rose.

©2005 Joan Didion (P)2005 HighBridge Company

Critic reviews

• 2005 Audie Award Nominee, Biography/Memoir
• National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee, Autobiography, 2005

"Many will greet this taut, clear-eyed memoir of grief as a long-awaited return to the terrain of Didion's venerated, increasingly rare personal essays....This is an indispensable addition to Didion's body of work and a lyrical, disciplined entry in the annals of mourning literature." (Publishers Weekly)
"The Year of Magical Thinking is not a downer. On the contrary. Though the material is literally terrible, the writing is exhilarating and what unfolds resembles an adventure narrative." (The New York Times)

Better: Good Grief

While I enjoyed this book, I think Good Grief by Lolly Winston does a better job of allowing you inside the grief process -- including a very memorable scene of showing up to work in pajamas; knowing it is not right, but unable to stop yourself.
The Year Of Magical Thinking is less about the process of grief and more about memoir and memory. In the end, I wasn't sure where the main character was in her "grief" or what she had been through. Just a lot of snapshots of life before and after the loss. Perhaps that is all it is meant to be.

A beautiful work, beautifully read.

Simply, a brilliantly clear, wrenching account. Deeply moving, never sentimental or manipulative, Didion uses exact descriptions, exact language to tell her story. Not a word is out of place. It's also one of the best read books. The narrator is fantastic.

Good but doesn't really go anywhere

The title of my review probably hints that I didn't really like it but I did give the book 4 stars because I found it really enjoyable. I just want to warn people who want their books to "climax" that this book doesn't do that. Some people want the characters to learn great life lessons and make huge changes and take big risks in their life and this book is not about that kind of thing, mostly because it is a memoir that tells a story about the grief process. People who have experienced the death of a dearly loved one will resonate with this book and people who have not experienced that kind of loss may not be able to relate. I personally loved it and found it deeply moving.

good book for a fresh death

she does a good job of sharing the immediate experience, and how that changed for her over the course of a year. the way places and sensory input sparks emotion and memory is vivid. I especially like how Joan paints herself as some what removed and reserved because when the grief begins to impact her it's pretty good.

What is with that music?!

The music at the end of each chapter was terribly unnecessary and distracting. Going on for too long and at a volume that felt almost comically competitive with the reader.

I loved the story but deeply disliked the feel. It cheapened the beauty of Didion. I will definitely read this one in physical form to redeem its memory.

Helpful + Beautifully Written and Read

This beautifully written and artfully narrated first person memoir delivered what the title promised: a reflection of truly magical thinking.

I began listening to it as my father lay ill after a long and active life. During the course of my listening, I worked on domestic tasks and painting in my studio. These tasks help me concentrate, and I knew that I needed to concentrate, to learn from Joan...for days ahead.

I finished The Year of Magical Thinking about a week after my dad's funeral and while waiting for my mother to return from a short stay with my sister. By hearing Joan's progress, I feel that I can help my mother begin hers.

Reading this book for the second time.

I originally read this book in the hard cover edition. I read it because Joan Didion was the author. I have always enjoyed her writings. It is an excellent book and beautifully written. In less than a year I too was widowed. I reread the book again and then gave my book to a friend who was also recently widowed. I asked her not to return the book but instead, to pass it along to another widowed person and ask them to do the same You don't "get over " the death of a mate of many years, in my case 52 years, you get used to being alone, at best. Today I decided to read it yet again after four years. By all means read this story for yourself and for others who are widowed or may be facing imminent widowhood.

Sad and Beautiful

loved it, almost hypnotic, and I so enjoyed the readers voice an inflection. just perfect.

Amazing narrative detail, a healing account

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this unabashed, documented and detailed, well-crafted account of love, loss and healing around the death of this fine woman's beloved. Thank you, Diane Keaton, for your fantastic reading.

A story about grieving and mourning

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

This was a moving window into the mind of Joan Didion after having experienced two serious life crises, and anyone who has experienced crises piling upon one another is likely to see themselves - raw, vulnerable, and sometimes irrational - in her experience, and that was worthwhile. It is also, an interesting glimpse of the world of the American intelligensia. It is a good story that held my attention.

Could you see The Year of Magical Thinking being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

This could be a pretty good movie starring Meryl Streep as Didion.