John Dunne

by

Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking: A Story of Grief and Compassion

Authored by Elizabeth Hodges

This is an autographed poster advertising the 2007 play The Year of Magical Thinking starring Vanessa Redgrave. The autographers include Vanessa Redgrave, director David Hare, and Joan Didion (Autographed poster of The Year of Magical Thinking 2007).

“Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends. The question of self-pity” (Didion 2007a, 3). In December of 2003, Quintana Roo Dunne, daughter of writers Joan Didion and John Dunne, fell into septic shock after contracting pneumonia. On December 31, 2003, after visiting their daughter in New York’s Beth Israel North Hospital, Didion and Dunne sat down to dinner (Didion 2007a, 6-7). Shortly after they began eating, Dunne suffered from a major heart attack and died. Dunne’s death marked the beginning of a year that would change Joan Didion’s life. After a number of traumatic hospitalizations in 2004, Quintana developed acute pancreatitis and died August 26, 2005 (Meter 2005).

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