The Year of Magical Thinking--The Play

by: Joan Didion

Published by: Vintage Books

Reviewed by Melissa McNallan

The Year of Magical Thinking possesses hauntingly concise prose. It is a one-woman show that reads like having a conversation with Didion. The telling is intimate enough to make it feel as if it is an older and wiser sister telling you what you may likely confront in your lifetime. It is detailed enough to make tangible for theatergoers in New York City and Los Angeles face what one wishes was unimaginable. It is phenomenal enough to show why Didion is one of the best writers of our times and that there is seemingly nothing that she fails to find the words for.

That there will be a moment in time when you feel unquestionably safe—and the moment following, one of the most important people in your life may pass on. She tells the reader about how she handled the passing of her husband as a journey—from being the cool, methodical thinker, as his passage from this life was confirmed, to being unable to give away his shoes because he would need them when he came back, to being able to come to terms with his absence.

Her daughter fell ill before her husband passed. While her daughter is in the hospital in California, Joan Didion faces more than treading on doctors’ toes and doing everything possible to pull her daughter through the illness. She also faces streets full of memories ready to take her away into magical thinking. In order to keep away from the memories, she takes well-planned routes from her hotel room to her daughter’s hospital room. Didion tells the story of seeing her daughter come out of illness, and then being unable to protect her from falling ill again, and her passage from this life.

The play is not filled with an overwhelming sense of hope, but hope still finds a home in the play. While reading it I couldn’t help but think of those I know who have passed on and how I would handle it if my own husband and daughter were to pass out of this life before me. I imagined the unbearable grief as I read. By the end of the play I could feel how to make it through, to survive something that one would rather not.

Armchair Interviews says: It is that quiet, affirming hope that Didion’s play possesses.