Notes to John

This intimate posthumous volume brings together notes from the early 2000s that Didion (Let Me Tell You What I Mean) addressed to her husband, John Gregory Dunne, on her sessions with psychiatrist Roger MacKinnon, whom she started seeing at the behest of her daughter, Quintana Roo Dunne, in an effort to repair their relationship. The dispatches act as a cipher to 2011's Blue Nights, Didion's oblique meditation on Quintana's death in 2005 at age 39, revealing in greater detail Quintana's struggle with alcoholism and mental illness. According to the notes, MacKinnon encouraged Didion to work through how her own neuroses might be impacting Quintana, such as feeling guilty over having spent so much time working instead of playing with Quintana when she was young. Other recurring topics include the closeness of Didion and Dunne (MacKinnon suggests that the couple's tendency to sometimes hold back from expressing themselves to protect their professional relationship left Quintana feeling alienated and confused as to what a healthy marriage looked like), and the need for the pair to allow Quintana space to explore her own desires so she could move beyond simply trying to please them. More than mere notes, Didion's fly-on-the-wall reports recap the therapy sessions word-for-word, offering an unvarnished look into the personal life and psychology of the oft-enigmatic writer. As poignant as it is candid, this is essential reading for Didion devotees. (Apr.)

The late novelist and journalist records her innermost, deeply personal struggles. Didion died in 2021. Afterward, a file of private notes was discovered among her things, including notes addressed to her late husband, John Gregory Dunne, recounting sessions with the noted Freudian psychiatrist Roger MacKinnon, "a staunch defender of talk therapy." Talk they do, with Didion serving up a battery of problems and MacKinnon offering wise if perhaps non-actionable responses to them, for instance, "Nothing about families turns out to be easy, does it." It's not easy, for sure, and Didion's chief concern throughout is her daughter, Quintana Roo, who died after a long illness, the subject of Didion's 2011 memoirBlue Nights. Indeed, so many of the conversations concern Quintana that Didion--by design, one supposes--skirts her own issues, although MacKinnon identifies some: "I did think you might have developed more self--awareness," he says, referring to Didion's habit of squirreling herself away whenever difficult subjects arose. Didion counters that she cherishes privacy, adding that she sometimes left her own parties to shelter in her office and admitting that her long habit of overwork was a means of emotional distancing. It's not wholly that Didion lacks that self-awareness, but that the keenest insights about her come from others, as when she records, "I said a friend had once remarked that while most people she knew had very strong competent exteriors and were bowls of jelly inside, I was just the opposite." That Didion was constantly anxious, sometimes to the point of needing medication, will come as no surprise to close readers of her work, but the depth of her anguish and guilt over her inability to save her daughter--she threw plenty of money at her, but little in the way of love--is both affecting and saddening. Of great interest to Didion completists, though a minor entry in the body of her work. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.