Notes for John

In November 1999, Joan Didion began seeing a psychiatrist because, as she wrote to a friend, her family had been “going through tough times for the last few years.” She kept a diary for her husband John Gregory Dunne, where she detailed her conversations with the doctor. The discussions revolved around depression, anxiety, guilt, and her complicated relationship with her daughter, Quintana. Additionally, Didion increasingly experienced prolonged periods when she could not work. Her childhood was also discussed—a sense of misunderstanding, lack of contact with her mother and father, an early feeling of impending catastrophe. These entries are an astonishingly honest account, and we see those
sides of Didion that were unknown to anyone, yet before us, she is undoubtedly a person torturing herself with questions but resolutely embarking on such a painful journey.