Notes to John

In November 1999 Joan Didion began seeing a psychiatrist because as she wrote to a friend her family had had 'a rough few years'. She described the sessions in a journal she created for her husband John Gregory Dunne.For several months Didion recorded conversations with the psychiatrist in meticulous detail. The initial sessions focused on alcoholism adoption depression anxiety guilt and the heartbreaking complexities of her relationship with her daughter Quintana. The subjects evolved to include her work which she was finding difficult to maintain for sustained periods. There were discussions about her own childhood – misunderstandings and lack of communication with her mother and father her early tendency to anticipate catastrophe – and the question of legacy or as she put it 'what it’s been worth'. The analysis would continue for more than a decade.Didion’s journal was crafted with the singular intelligence precision and elegance that characterize all of her writing. It is an unprecedently intimate account that reveals sides of her that were unknown but the voice is unmistakably hers – questioning courageous and clear in the face of a wrenchingly painful journey.