Several days before christmas 2003, joan didions only daughter, quintana, fell seriously ill. Didion s nephew griffin dunne directed a documentary about didion titled joan didion. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading blue nights. Richly textured with memories from her own childhood and married life with her husband, john gregory dunne, and daughter, quintana roo, this new book by joan didion is an intensely personal and moving account of her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness and growing old.
Blue nights opens on july 26, 2010, as didion thinks back to quintanas wedding in new. Blue nights jefferson county public library overdrive. Download for offline reading, highlight, bookmark or. All content included on our site, such as text, images, digital downloads and other, is the property of its content suppliers and protected by us and international laws. Buy a cheap copy of blue nights book by joan didion. As she reflects on her daughters life and on her role as a parent, didion grapples with the candid questions. Blue nights follows joan didions bestselling memoir, the year of magical thinking, which had concentrated on the sudden death of her husband, john gregory dunne. Joan didion is currently considered a single author. Blue nights enhanced edition kindle edition by joan didion. Several days before christmas 2003, joan didion s only daughter, quintana, fell seriously ill.
As of 2005, didion was living in an apartment on east 71st street in new york city. The book attempts to cope with the terrible loss of her husband and her adopted daughter, quintana roo, as seen through her own perspective of aging, frailty, fear of debilitating disease and death, and above all loneliness. Joan didion was born in sacramento, california, and now lives in new york city. Listen 29 min more after the deaths of husband, john gregory dunne, and her daughter, quintana, joan didion wrote blue nights knopf, the most personal and poetic book of her impressive career. Blue nights, it must be said, is almost unbearably sad. She is the author of five novels and eight previous books of nonfiction. Libraryyour amazon photosyour amazon driveyour prime videoyour kindle. Blue nights is a memoir written by american author joan didion, first published in 2011.
For all its fury and fragility, joan didions harrowing account of her daughters life and premature death is strangely anaemic. Richly textured with memories from her own childhood and married life with her husband, john gregory dunne, and daughter, quintana roo, this new book by joan didion is an intensely personal and moving account of her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness and. This enhanced ebook edition of blue nights includes three short films directed by griffin dunne and starring joan didion. Blue nights palm beach county library system overdrive. Joan didions landmark collection of essays, slouching towards bethlehem, helped define the new journalism of the late 1960s and today stands as some of the very finest nonfiction writing ever produced by an american writer. Each film blends didions incisive prose with images and mementos from her daughters life. Blue nights joan didion, 2012 knopf doubleday 208 pp. Joan didion in this memoir, the author shares her observations about her daughter as well as her own thoughts and fears about having children and growing old, in a personal account that discusses her daughters.
Blue nights by joan didion kansas city public library. Blue nights enhanced edition by joan didion in epub, rtf, txt download e book. This enhanced ebook edition of blue nights includes three short films. From one of our most powerful writers, blue nights is a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Richly textured with bits of her own childhood and married life with her husband, john gregory dunne, and daughter, quintana roo, this new book by joan didion examines her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness, and growing old. Didion later wrote about quintanas death in the 2011 book blue nights. Joan didion was born in sacramento, ca in 1934, the daughter of an officer in the army air corps. Such blue light becomes joan didion s vehicle to articulate the intense beauty and pain that accompany awareness of imminent loss. If one or more works are by a distinct, homonymous authors, go ahead and split the author. Blue nights north central regional library overdrive. Joyce carol oates called joan didion an articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time. This fact triggers vivid snapshots of quintanas childhoodin malibu, in brentwood, at school in holmby hills. Blue nights enhanced edition by joan didion books library.
From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Blue nights the free library of philadelphia overdrive. This memoir mostly focuses on the 2005 death of the couples adopted daughter, quintana roo dunne. The books main focus is didions relationship with her daughter, but it also addresses the authors own childhood and offers some very frank thoughts on old age and mortality in general. In essence, blue nights tries to offer didion s lifetime setting of personal accounts. Blue nights is a memoir by joan didion, written after didions daughter died of cancer at age 39.
Blue nights is a deeply elegiac, heartrending book. Blue nights by joan didion penguin random house canada. While her daughter was unconscious, didions husband died. Blue nights charlotte mecklenburg library overdrive. Get cozy and expand your home library with a large online selection of books at. Blue nights is a shatteringly honest examination of joan didions life as a mother, a woman and a writer. Richly textured with memories from her own childhood and married life with her husband, john gregory dunne, and daughter, quintana roo, this new book by joan didion is an intensely personal and moving account of her thoughts, fears, and doubts. Following the acclaimed and bestselling the year of magical thinking, blue nights is joan didions intensely personal and moving. A new york times notable bookfrom one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Richly textured with bits of her own childhood and married life with her husband, john gregory dunne, and daughter, quintana roo, this new book by joan didion. As in 2005s the year of magical thinking, for which she won the national book award, joan didion here writes starkly about the death of a loved one.
Blue nights southeastern libraries cooperating overdrive. Blue nights by joan didion overdrive rakuten overdrive. Download it once and read it on your kindle device, pc, phones or tablets. Blue nights southern tier library system overdrive. Nov 06, 2011 now didion has written a companion piece to that book. The introduction, discussion questions, and suggested further reading that follow are designed to enhance and inform your groups discussion of joan didions blue nights, a heartwrenching book about the death of her daughter quintana roo. Blue nights the long, light evening hours that signal the summer solstice, the opposite of the dying of the brightness, but also its warninglike the year of magical thinking before it, is an iconic book of incisive and electric honesty, haunting and profound. Didion is the author of the novels play it as it lays and the last thing he wanted, the essay collections slouching toward bethlehem and the white album, and the memoirs where i was from and the year of magical thinking. Blue nights is a shatteringly honest examination of joan didion s life as a mother, a woman and a writer.
Download for offline reading, highlight, bookmark or take notes while you read blue nights. From one of americas iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion. Richly textured with memories from her own childhood and married life with her husband, john gregory dunne, and daughter, quintana roo, this new book by joan didion is an intensely personal and moving account of her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children. Blue nights is an account of the death, in 2005, of her and dunnes adopted daughter, quintana roo, and more specifically, of didion. Kindle ebooks can be read on any device with the free kindle app. Blue nights great river regional library overdrive. Joan didion, blue nights it has been a decade since joan didions daughter quintana died. We talk about aging, death and the act of complete surrender that this. Blue nightsthe long, light evening hours that signal the summer solstice, the. As she reflects on her daughters life and on her role as a parent, didion grapples with the. Each film blends didion s incisive prose with images and mementos from her daughters life. Blue nights both begins and ends in colour, when the days shorten and twilights turn long and blue. Please read our short guide how to send a book to kindle.
In 2003, joan didions daughter went into the hospital with pneumonia, eventually slipping into a coma. While her daughter was unconscious, didion s husband died. Now didion has written a companion piece to that book. Such blue light becomes joan didions vehicle to articulate the intense beauty and pain that accompany awareness of imminent loss. Yet despite the bleak subject matter, didions writing is as crisp, candid and thoughtprovoking as ever. In 2003, joan didion s daughter went into the hospital with pneumonia, eventually slipping into a coma. We tell ourselves stories in order to live, was published by everymans library in 2006. A shy, bookish child, didion spent her teenage years typing out ernest hemingway stories to learn how sentences work. She also muses on her own failing health and her fears of growing old. The book attempts to cope with the terrible loss of her husband and her adopted daughter. In essence, blue nights tries to offer didions lifetime setting of personal accounts. Joan didion from one of americas greatest and most iconic writers.
Play it as it lays by joan didion signed first edition 1970 1st printing. In 2010, didion marked the sixth anniversary of her daughters death. Blue nightsthe long, light evening hours that signal the summer solstice, the opposite of the dying of the brightness, but also its warninglike the year of magical thinking before it, is an iconic book of incisive and electric honesty, haunting and profound. Her collected nonfiction, we tell ourselves stories in order to live, was published by everymans library in 2006. A new york times notable book and national bestseller. Blue nights opens on july 26, 2010, as didion thinks back to quintanas wedding in new york seven years before. She wrote her first grief memoir the year of magical thinking after her husband died in 2003. Available on kindle ebook and can be read on any device with the free kindle.