Blue Nights

Seems I'm getting into the habit of reading a book club selection well ahead of time. I think I picked up this thin book from Honnold so quickly after learning we will be discussing it in August because I have just started a very long book and feel I need to intersperse shorter books in-between.

Nonetheless, I'm sure I will reread at least a good portion of Joan Didion's Blue Nights again just before book club. What struck me as I read this book, an account of Didion's state of mind after the untimely death of her daughter, is that it reminded me, in ways, of Calvin Trillin's book about his wife, Alice, which I read not too long ago. (Turns out that Didion and Trillin are friends.) Didion's style leans away from Trillin's light into her own shadows, but this is not a gloom and doom book, nor is it a straightforward description of her daughter's illness. Rather, it roams through her memories, her thoughts and darker corners of introspection. In some instances, I could readily identify with her, but mostly her life is so different from mine that it was like traveling to another place.