Novel Post

[It's actually a memoir post.]

Joan Didion's book, A Year of Magical Thinking, is her beautiful and heartbreaking account of the events following the sudden death of her husband, the author John Gregory Dunne. The title refers to her realization that she'd experienced a kind of insanity during this period: while she behaved calmly and rationally and stoically, she was simultaneously haunted by mystical, hypnotic thoughts. And of course, she constantly relived their lives, sometimes despite her efforts not to think about him at all. Rarely have I read such an evocative description of the experience of loss.

She misses everything about him, everything about their life together. In describing one summer’s routine in the 1970s, when they lived in Los Angeles, she provides us with an beautiful image of the luxurious monotony she misses:

At seven or seven-thirty we would go out to dinner, many nights at Morton’s. Morton’s felt right that summer. There was always shrimp quesadilla, chicken with black beans. There was always someone we knew. The room was cool and polished and dark inside but you could see the twilight outside.

Our shrimp quesadillas were made with Sonoma pepper jack and heirloom tomatoes, with freshly made guacamole and salsa and sour cream on the side.The heirlooms and avocados are in season right now, so they were also featured on our entrée plates, along with a simple sautéed breast of chicken seasoned with rosemary and orange.And I imagine them drinking vodka martinis, with the twilight outside.

* John was the brother of the journalist Dominick Dunne, who writes great gossipy celebrity-related columns for Vanity Fair magazine.

This is my entry for the Novel Food event that Lisa of Champaign Taste and Simona of Briciole are co-hosting.