The Year of Magical Thinking

Didion’s grief is inflated by her worry for her daughter who remains unconscious in the ICU. She attempts to reconstruct the events leading up to her husband’s death, including her daughter’s rapid decline in health over the Christmas holidays. What appeared at first to be strep or flu soon escalated to labored breathing, so Quintana’s husband rushed her to the emergency room for X-rays. She was diagnosed with pneumonia, but doctors assured Didion and Quintana’s husband that there was nothing to worry about. By that same evening, Quintana’s fever had worsened, and she was no longer able to breathe on her own. Pneumonia had flooded both her lungs. The day after Christmas, they were informed that Quintana had gone into septic shock. When they arrived back home from the hospital—five days after Quintana had been admitted—their apartment was starkly ordinary. The couple struggled to understand how their seemingly healthy daughter could suddenly cause a doctor to indicate that she may not make it, reflecting upon how the ordinary can so quickly turn into chaos.

Five months before Quintana was admitted to the hospital, Didion and Dunne attended Quintana’s wedding. Like her mother’s wedding, Quintana had wanted something simple. Didion’s memory of the events of her daughter’s illness and her husband’s death are interspersed with memories of her daughter’s wedding, as well as her own.