Notes for John

In 1999, Joan Didion, the writer who over decades had admirably and widely recognized described the identity of the United States of America, began to see a psychiatrist.

For over a year, she described the clinical sessions in diary entries addressed to her husband, John Gregory Dunne. The diary was discovered in Didion's office after her death in 2021.

The sessions began as part of the author's effort to deal with a developing sense of crisis, precipitated by her daughter's tragic alcoholism.

Over time, the topics covered, always in an interconnected narrative, began to include Didion's work, her own childhood — misunderstandings and communication breakdowns with her mother and father, as well as her early tendency to anticipate catastrophes — and even the question of legacy; as Didion herself put it: "What was it all worth?"

This diary is a moving account of the painful dilemma of a woman, a courageous writer recognized for her ability to meticulously examine the layers of a story.

The first book retrieved from Joan Didion's literary archive.