Joan Didion kept notes of her therapy sessions.
In 46 entries dating back to December 1999, she discussed alcoholism, depression, anxiety and the complex relationship with her daughter, Quintana Roo Dunne. Addressed to her husband, John Gregory Dunne, these never-before-seen notes were found stashed in a filing cabinet beside Didion’s desk in her Manhattan apartment and will be published later this year in “Notes to John” — the American writer’s first posthumous release.
In 1999, the Sacramento native’s family was going through “a rough few years,” according to a letter she wrote to a friend. Offering a peek into Didion’s psyche, the personal accounts address themes she later explored in her early-2000s writings, including “Where I Was From,” “The Year of Magical Thinking” and “Blue Nights.” Each entry will be published almost entirely unedited, with the exception of corrected typos and added footnotes. The original manuscripts will be made available at the New York Public Library on March 26 as a part of Didion and Dunne’s joint archives.
Best known for chronicling the counterculture of the 1960s and ’70s with essays like “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” and “The White Album,” Didion spent her life writing about her astute observations. The writer, who dabbled in both fiction and nonfiction, is considered one of the pioneers of New Journalism. She suffered from Parkinson’s disease and died in 2021 at age 87.
The book, “Notes to John,” will be published in hardcover and ebook by Knopf on April 22. Penguin Random House will release the audiobook.
“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. Yet this is also Joan Didion as we have never seen her before — open, vulnerable, wrestling with raw emotion,” Jordan Pavlin — Knopf executive vice president, publisher and editor-in-chief — said in a press release. “‘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.”
