From one of America's iconic authors, a portrayal of a marriage and a life—in good times and bad—that will resonate with anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child. A striking book filled with electric honesty and passion.

Just days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion watched their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill. Initially thought to be flu, then pneumonia, it evolved into full septic shock. She was placed in an induced coma and put on life support. A few days later—on New Year's Eve—Didion and John were about to sit down for dinner after visiting the hospital when John suffered a massive, fatal heart attack. In an instant, this close, symmetrical partnership of 40 years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter recovered consciousness. Two months after that, arriving at Los Angeles airport, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma.

This powerful book is Didion's 'attempt' to make sense of the weeks and then months that cut off any steady assumption I had about death, about illness...about marriage and children and memory...about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself.' The result is an exploration of a deeply personal yet universal experience: a depiction of a marriage and a life, in good times and bad.

Pages: 240, Dimensions: 12.9x12.9cm