Review XP The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

I really can't call this a review. It has elements of a review, but it's more of a reflection.

I read The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion in bits and pieces over a period of five months. I lost it for a few weeks, then found it under my bed. And it truly isn't the type of book I usually have any interest in reading (though I'm working on that to include any and all and every damn book). So the fact that I finished it means something. Perhaps it was morbid curiosity that drove me to finish.  Perhaps it was my current fascination with death. Fascination is too strong a word. Interest. Just an interest that seems to be coming up a lot. Or perhaps it was my Goodreads 2017 book challenge.

The narrative was compelling, in that it's non-fiction. The author's husband, with whom she'd spent all of her time with since their marriage (they were both successful authors who worked from home, so they spent nearly every day together) dropped dead at the dinner table. How does one cope with such an experience? Spoiler: one doesn't, not really. Her new reality, though not completely unexpected, was so sudden that she struggled to understand what had happened, even 12 months later.

I haven't had to deal with a close loss yet. My grandfather and my grandmother on opposite sides both passed when I was still young, self-centered and therefore immune to the implications of death, and even now I can only imagine what true grief feels like. Which is probably why this quote spoke to me both as an author and a human being:

"Nor can we know ahead of the fact (and here lies the heart of the difference between grief as we imagine it and grief as it is) the unending absence that follows, the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaninglessness itself." - Pg. 189

I think we all reach an age where we begin to ask questions. Questions like, "What the fuck is the point of everything?" which can be answered a million different ways. I think at 39, I'm a bit behind in the search for my own truth. Right now I have a million questions and no clear answers. But I think that's a good place to start.

Goodreads: 2/5 Stars

J. L. Dodd