Didion's last book, The Year of Magical Thinking, was a poignant memoir of her nearly 40-year marriage to John Gregory Dunne, who suffered a fatal heart attack at the dinner table in 2003, while their only daughter, Quintana Roo, was in a New York City ICU. Blue Nights is a meditation on the death of her daughter at age 39 in 2005 as well as on illness, aging and the wisdom or folly of having children at all.
Quintana was adopted on the day she was born, coming home to a house that would not have had a layette or a bassinet were it not for friends; Didion was at a loss as to how to anticipate a child's needs.
Quintana was eventually diagnosed with "borderline personality disorder"; in view of that, it is interesting that Didion makes no mention of her own breakdown in 1968, when Quintana was two. She documented it in The White Album, but it doesn't enter here. She accuses herself, excuses herself and constantly comes back to a variation on the same theme: Did I get it right? Was it something I did? Didn't do? Are Didion's neurotic/neurasthenic tendencies a narcissistic show or is her beautiful prose truly indicative of a great sadness? The only fair conclusion is: some of each.
When she moves away from self-examination, there is more of Didion at her still-impressive writerly self. She writes with more enthusiasm about '50s parties, smoking, drinking and celebrities. A life of cosseted privilege not spared two horrendous deaths makes us, ultimately, sympathize with her. ---Valerie Ryan, Cannon Beach Book Company, Ore.