The Last Love Song (121 page)

“I knew he had heart trouble”: Hari Kunzru, “Joan Didion's Yellow Corvette,” posted at
harikunzru.com/archive/joan-didions-yellow-corvette-interview-transcript-2011
.

“I couldn't help drawing a line”: Sean Day Michael to the author, November 2, 2013.

“Then when is she coming in?”: Didion,
The Year of Magical Thinking,
84.

“Where's Dad?”: ibid.

“How's Dad?”: ibid.

“But how is he
now
?”: ibid.

CHAPTER 39

“sunny room” and “[c]old milk”: Emily Post quoted in Joan Didion,
The Year of Magical Thinking
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 58.

“Don't tell me your dream”: ibid., 159.

“a very new-on-the-scene blood thinner”: Sean Day Michael to the author, November 2, 2013.

“For nothing now can ever come to any good”: W. H. Auden's “Funeral Blues” cited in Joan Didion,
Blue Nights
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), 156–57.

“wrong” and “vehement”: ibid., 157.

“place to be”: Liz Smith cited in an e-mail from Joan Didion to Susanna Moore, March 5, 2004, Susanna Moore Papers, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

“When John was alive”: Hari Kunzru, “Joan Didion's Yellow Corvette,” posted at
harikunzru.com/archive/joan-didion-yellow-corvette-interview-transcript-2011
.

Dunne's memorial: all quotes regarding the memorial service are from Jane Gross, “John Gregory Dunne Eulogized in Cathedral,”
New York Times,
March 24, 2004; available at
www.nytimes.com/2004/03/04/nyregion/john-gregory-dunne-eulogized-in-cathedral.html
.

“I had encouraged this”: Didion,
The Year of Magical Thinking,
86.

“[My dad] said she was fine walking one minute”: Sean Day Michael to the author, November 4, 2013.

“reliable” folks: Claire Potter, “Slouching Towards Joan Didion,” posted at
chronicle.com/blognetwork/tenuredradical/2012/01/slouching-towards-joan-didion/
.

“Do I know if she was drinking”: Sean Day Michael to the author, November 4, 2013.

“happened to be in New York”: Sean Day Michael to the author, November 2, 2013.

“
You're safe
”: Didion,
The Year of Magical Thinking,
96.

“When do you have to leave?”: ibid.

For the next five weeks: For details of this period and “the vortex effect,” see ibid., 107–118.

“suspicious violation of boundaries”: ibid., 106.

“suggesting trauma all over Southern California”: ibid., 135–36.

“cornfield”: ibid., 138.

“Am I going to make it?” and “Definitely”: ibid., 140.

“It was a Quarter Pounder”: ibid.

“systematic … sadistic,” “[b]reaking chemical lights,” and “almost went into cardiac arrest”: Seymour Hersh, “Torture at Abu Ghraib,”
The New Yorker,
May 10, 2004, 43.

“senior military officers”: ibid., 46.

“enhanced interrogation techniques”: ibid., 47.

“collective wrong-doing”: ibid.

“Army intelligence officers”: ibid., 45.

“Do you really think”: ibid., 44.

“tell you what you want to hear”: ibid., 47.

Cheney said simply: See Chris McGreal, “Dick Cheney Defends Use of Torture on al-Qaida Leaders,”
The Guardian,
September 9, 2011; available at
www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/09/dick-cheney-defends-torture-al-qaida
.

A caller to Rush Limbaugh's radio talk show: See “Rush: MPs Just ‘Blowing Off Steam,'” CBS News, May 6, 2004; available at
www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/06/opinion/meyer/main616021.shtml
.

“The photographs are us”: Susan Sontag, “Regarding the Torture of Others,”
New York Times
, May 23, 2004; available at
www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/magazine/regarding-the-torture-of-others.html
.

“image of a frightened, naked man”: Elaine Scarry quoted in Linda Myers, “Torture Can Never Be Defended as a Military Necessity, Asserts Harvard Professor and Iraq War Critic Elaine Scarry,”
Cornell Chronicle,
March 6, 2014; available at
news.cornell.edu/stories/2006/05/torture-can-never-be-defended-military-necessity-says-harvard-prof
.

Gerry Michael's insurance stopped paying: Didion expressed these concerns to Susanna Moore in e-mails in April 2005, Susanna Moore Papers, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

“shadowy silhouettes”: Didion,
The Year of Magical Thinking,
178.

“attempt to make sense”: ibid., 7.

“
Life changes in the instant
”: ibid., 3.

“Primitive men and neurotics”: Freud's
Totem and Taboo
cited in Jeffrey Berman,
Companionship in Grief: Love and Loss in the Memoirs of C. S. Lewis, John Bayley, Donald Hall, Joan Didion, and Calvin Trillin
(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010), 205.

“pathological condition”: Didion,
The Year of Magical Thinking
,
34–35.

“Let them become the photograph on the table”: ibid., 226.

“as January becomes February”: Didion,
The Year of Magical Thinking,
225.

she had an image: Joan Didion e-mail to Susanna Moore, December 2, 2004, Susanna Moore Papers, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

CHAPTER 40

“[V]ery good. Really interesting”: Joan Didion,
The Year of Magical Thinking: A Play
(New York: Vintage, 2007), 53.

Didion started to venture out in public: Details about Didion's activities are from correspondence between Didion and Susanna Moore in the early months of 2005, Susanna Moore Papers, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

“anybody” was at “home” and “No one who has had even a passing exposure”: Joan Didion, “The Case of Theresa Schiavo,”
The New York Review of Books,
June 9, 2005; available at
nybooks.com/articles/archives/2005/jun/09/the-case-of-theresa-schiavo
.

“unassuageable grief”: ibid.

At the end of April 2005: Joan Didion e-mail to Susanna Moore, April 30, 2005, Susanna Moore Papers, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Ten days later: Joan Didion e-mail to Susanna Moore, May 10, 2005, in ibid.

“entered the hospital”: Joan Didion,
Blue Nights
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), 158.

“had been at home”: Didion,
The Year of Magical Thinking: A Play,
53.

“Your daughter wasn't in great condition,” “five surgical interventions,” and “ventilated”: Didion,
Blue Nights,
159.

acute pancreatitis: Didion,
The Year of Magical Thinking: A Play,
53.

“probably intertwined”: Susan Traylor quoted in Boris Kachka, “I Was No Longer Afraid to Die. I Was Now Afraid Not to Die,”
New York,
October 16, 2011; available at
nymag.com/arts/books/features/joan-didion-2011-10
.

“Alcohol has its well-known defects”: Didion,
Blue Nights,
48.

“torchy” and “The power of cheap music”: ibid., 160.

“an important moment”: Sean Day Michael to the author, March 7, 2014.

“She asked specifically for the word ‘Ambivert'”: ibid.

At Quintana's memorial service: For details about the service, see Didion,
Blue Nights,
162–64.

“Woodstock wasn't in his plans”: Sean Day Michael to the author, March 7, 2014.

“My dad lost a wife”: Sean Day Michael to the author, November 2, 2013.

“I promised myself that I would maintain momentum”: Didion,
Blue Nights,
165.

“[I]t did not cross my mind to cancel it”: Hari Kunzru, “Joan Didion's Yellow Corvette,” posted at
harikunzru.com/archive/joan-didions-yellow-corvette-interview-transcript-2011
.

“very strong emotional response” and subsequent quotes in this paragraph: Hilton Als, “Joan Didion, The Art of Nonfiction No. 1,”
The Paris Review
47, no. 176 (Summer 2006); available at
www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5601/the-art-of-nonfiction-no-1-joan-didion
.

“You're the awesomest”: David Swick, “The Zen of Joan Didion,”
Shambhala Sun,
January 2007; available at
www.lionsroar.com/the-zen-of-joan-didion
.

“she in no way ingratiates herself”: Mark Feeney, “Amid Unbearable Sorrow, She Shows Her Might,”
Boston Globe,
October 26, 2005; available at
boston.com/ae/books/articles/2005/10/26/amid_unbearable_sorrow_she_shows_
her_might/?page=full.

“I don't think she's changed much”: Robert Silvers quoted in ibid.

“I think my view of death didn't change”: Didion quoted in ibid.

The judges' citation: The citation and Didion's remarks are posted at national
book.org/nba2005_nf_didion.html
.

“There is hardly anything I can say”: ibid.

“Hats by John Frederics”: Joan Didion, “Joan Didion's Year of Magical Thinking,”
The Telegraph,
April 19, 2008; available at
telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/3672742/Joan-Didions-Year-of-Magical-Thinking.html
.

“Absolutely too short for the stage”: ibid.

“The movement … should build”: ibid.

“I knew that the play would be about language”: ibid.

“sexually simmering suburban scenes” and “bad boy”: Celia McGee, “A World and an Artist Transformed,”
New York Times,
May 15, 2013; available at
www.nytimes.com/2013/5/16/fashion/eric-fischl-goes-back-to-his-future,html?_r=0
.

“Only when I realized”: Didion, “Joan Didion's Year of Magical Thinking.”

“I remember liking the entire process”: Didion,
Blue Nights,
166.

“Cheney did not take the lesson”: Joan Didion, “Cheney: The Fatal Touch,”
The New York Review of Books,
October 5, 2006; available at
www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2006/oct/05/cheney-the-fatal-touch/
.

“separated from [his] body”: Mark Danner, “In the Darkness of Dick Cheney,”
The New York Review of Books,
March 6, 2014; available at
www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/mar/06/darkness-dick-cheney/
.

“Vanessa Redgrave is not playing me”: Didion, “Joan Didion's Year of Magical Thinking.”

“You think I'm crazy”: Didion,
The Year of Magical Thinking: A Play,
44.

“I liked watching the performance[s]”: Didion,
Blue Nights,
167.

“I did not want the yellow roses touched”: ibid., 169–70.

“There are a handful of writers”: Transcription of Michael Cunningham's remarks at the National Book Awards Ceremony, November 14, 2007, Marriott Marquis Hotel, New York.

“I didn't start writing”: Transcript of Joan Didion's remarks at the National Book Awards Ceremony, November 14, 2007, Marriott Marquis Hotel, New York.

“children of Gaza”: Ellen Gamerman, “An Encore of Magical Thinking,”
Wall Street Journal,
October 23, 2009; available at
online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704500604574483701735245382
.

“This was never supposed to happen to her”: Didion,
The Year of Magical Thinking: A Play,
42.

“[S]omebody failed Quintana”: Didion quoted in Adam Higginbotham, “Joan Didion: A Mother's Journey into Grief,”
Belfast Telegraph,
November 14, 2011; available at
belfasttelegraph.co.uk/woman/life/joan-didion-a-mothers-journey-into-grief-28680460.html
.

“Did I lie to you?”: Didion,
The Year of Magical Thinking: A Play,
55.

“five evenings and two afternoons a week”: Didion,
Blue Nights
: 167.

CHAPTER 41

“[Y]ou kind of grow into the role”: Didion quoted in Sheila Heti, “Joan Didion,”
The Believer,
December 2011; available at
believermag.com/exclusives/read=interview_didion
.

“I can hardly stay awake”: Didion quoted in Carrie Tuhy, “Joan Didion: Stepping into the River Styx, Again,”
Publishers Weekly,
September 30, 2011; available at
www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/profiles/article/48908-joan-didion-stepping-into-the-river-styx-again.html
.

“It got closer to my brother-in-law” and all subsequent comments from the screening of
Dominick Dunne: After the Party
: “Joan Didion on Obama: We All Have High Hopes, But Who Knows?”
New York Observer,
November 2008; available at
observer.com/2008/11/joan-didion-on-obama-we-all-have-high-hopes-but-who-knows/
.

“I couldn't count” and subsequent quotes from this article: Darryl Pinckney and Joan Didion, “Obama: In the Irony-Free Zone,”
The New York Review of Books,
December 18, 2008; available at
www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2008/dec/18/Obama-in-the-irony-free-zone/
.

Obama's acceptance speech: Susanna Moore e-mail to Joan Didion, November 5, 2008, Susanna Moore Papers, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

“national coma” and subsequent quotes in this paragraph: Didion's remarks at a Brooklyn Book Fair panel, “Consequences to Come,” September 2008, sponsored by
The New York Review of Books,
www.nybooks.com/podcasts/events/2008/sep/24/consequences-come
.

“made an inadequate adjustment” and Didion's reply: Joan Didion,
Blue Nights
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), 137.