The Year of Magical Thinking Study Guide & Plot Synopsis

The Year of Magical Thinking Plot Summary

Preview of The Year of Magical Thinking Summary:

This autobiographical memoir by noted author Joan Didion chronicles her experiences in the wake of the sudden death of her husband John Gregory Dunne, also a noted author. These experiences include the ongoing and life threatening, illness of their adopted daughter Quintana, sudden and almost crippling surges of feeling associated arising from lingering memories, and incomprehensible conversations with medical professionals. The book thematically explores the nature and manifestations of grief, as well as the inevitability of memory and the unexpected power of synchronicity.

The memoir opens with a narration of events on the night of the death of the author's husband—which she at first, in memoir as in life, can't bring herself to refer to as anything other than "the event". She describes how they were sitting down to dinner as they have always done, conversing as they have always done, when suddenly she became aware that...
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