It turns out that Joan Didion, who probed the depths of her grief for her late husband John Gregory Dunne in the powerful 2005 memoir “The Year of Magical Thinking,” had a previous history of exploring her own very complicated emotions. More than three years after her death in December 2021, she will have another book coming out, and it is extraordinary, to say the least. April 22 will see the publication of “Notes to John” (Knopf, $28.80, 224 pages), an excruciatingly detailed journal she kept for 10 years, beginning in 1999, of her ongoing sessions with a psychiatrist. Found in a cabinet next to her desk in Manhattan, these accumulated notes are being published exactly as written, with changes to typos only and footnotes for context added.
What these 46 entries, printed out in chronological order by Didion, reveal are raw details from her childhood relationships, her struggles with alcoholism and depression and anxiety and some of her troubled interactions with her adopted daughter Quintana Roo. They also, as the publishers take pains to point out, show compelling connections to themes in her literary works from the 2000s, including the aforementioned “Magical Thinking,” “Where I Was From” and “Blue Nights.”
Knopf editor-in-chief Jordan Pavlin commented in a press release, “Everything we revere about Joan Didion is instantly apparent in these pages—the precision, the fierce intelligence, the piercing insights, the withering interrogation of her own motives … ‘Notes to John’ is an extraordinarily intimate record of a painful and courageous journey in the life of one of the greatest writers of our time.”
Although the journal was fastidiously kept by its author, there is no record of what she wanted done with it, and objections have been raised on both sides of the Atlantic. (Its United Kingdom publisher is 4th Estate, an imprint of HarperCollins.) A British lecturer on the ethics of posthumous publications, Rod Rosenquist, who was personally “uncomfortable” with the decision, noted to The Guardian newspaper that the release of the notes was bound to generate huge interest and pull in money. “She is a celebrity writer with literary circles … and what I think is so interesting about public figures is that they are owned—manipulated in some ways—by the public,” he said.
A quick tour of input in cyberspace about the upcoming publication offers some confirmation: Postings on Goodreads and Reddit are replete with comments such as “cash grab” and “conflicted,” and the rampant ambiguity expressed could be summarized by this note: “I’m of the opinion that this book shouldn’t exist, but I don’t think I’m strong enough not to read it.”
A virtual nod to the power of verse: April is nigh upon us, and with it comes National Poetry Month, an observation begun in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets to highlight contributions that poetry has made to our culture and traditions. There are multiple ways to celebrate, but one of the most alluring might be the nationwide “Poetry & the Creative Mind” virtual session on April 24 on poets.org. Starting at 4:30 p.m. Pacific time and hosted by our national poet laureate Ada Limón, a lineup of famous (and semi-famous) readers will read a favorite poem. This year’s readers include Stephen King, Fran Lebowitz, Tony Kushner, Christine Baranski, Morgan Spector, Lawrence O’Donnell and many more. Past participants have included Meryl Streep (who has been a frequent honorary event co-chair), Malala Yousafzai, Courtney B. Vance, Wynton Marsalis, Paul Giamatti, Uma Thurman, Patti Smith and Willem Dafoe. The free event will be broadcast on Youtube but not available online afterward. Registration is required at poets.org/gala/2025.
While you’re on poets.org, consider signing up for the poem-a-month service that will land a different offering from one of our contemporary practitioners in your inbox every month. Here’s one recently posted from Donna Masini, written as she and her father both realized that the end was near for him:
My Father Teaches Me to Play Solitaire
by the window of his hospital room. So late in the day
and he won’t let us cheat. Cards slipping on his rickety tray,
the orderly rows collapsing into one another,
his hand diminishing, he turns over the one card
that won’t fit anywhere. We couldn’t finish
Wait, I said, we’re almost done. He shook his head.
Luck, chance. No skill involved. No will. No bluff. No time
to start a new game. I left my father waving in his window.
Days later I bought a deck, shuffled the stiff cards, set them up
the way he’d shown me, and—beginner’s luck?—I won.
Can you win a game you’ve played alone? No need to display
a poker face to yourself. No kidding, he said, I just won too.
My father’s a joker. Bruno, our neighbor used to say
you’re a card. So no surprise what he taught me:
when you’re done you have nothing in your hand.
Copyright © 2025 by Donna Masini. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 26, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
Spring brings a shower of book awards: Recipients of book honors for the 2024 publishing year were awarded in late March by the National Books Critic Circle, and it’s significant because the announcement marked the 50th anniversary for their issuance. More than 800 critics and book editors from around the country voted for the best releases in a dozen categories, as they have been doing since NBCC was founded at the legendary Algonquin Hotel in New York in 1974. The ceremony at the New School in New York, highlighted by guest speaker Maxine Hong Kingston, delivered the award for fiction to Hisham Matar for “My Friends,” a novel that traces a Libyan exile’s three decades in London and the connections he made while estranged from his family and homeland. The top nonfiction honor went to Adam Higginbotham for “Challenger: A True story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space,” which awards co-chair Jo Livingstone described as “a story of incompetence fostered when government agencies are invaded by corporate decision-makers.” The award for autobiography was an especially poignant one, going to the late Alexei Navalny for “Patriot: A Memoir,” posthumously published eight months after he died in a Russian prison. For the awardees in nine other categories, go to bookcritics.org.
Closer to home here in Northern California, the 2024 Golden Poppy Awards have also been announced; they are notable because they also come from voters who are insiders in the publishing industry, namely bookstore owners and employees who are members of the California Independent Booksellers Alliance. As you might expect, winners are frequently the books from California-based authors which have dominated best-sellers lists throughout the year. Percival Everett captured the top fiction honor for “James” this year, as did Stanford physician Abraham Verghese last year for “The Covenant of Water.” For information about the other awards, visit caliballiance.org.
Hooked on Books is a monthly column by Sue Gilmore on current literary buzz and can’t-miss upcoming book events. Look for it here every last Thursday of the month.
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