Joan Didion: life after death
Her last book dealt with the death of her husband; now Joan Didion's latest, Blue Nights, wrestles with losing her daughter
Emma Brockes
Friday 21 October 2011 23.02 BST
T
he porter in Joan Didion's building refers to her as Mrs Dunne, a reminder, eight years after her husband's death, of their enduring image as unit. Her last book, The Year Of Magical Thinking, captured in the most lucid prose the deranging effect of grief. Now she has written what might loosely be called a sequel, Blue Nights, about the awful confluence of the death, 18 months later, of her daughter, Quintana, at 39.
