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.”
Those are the first four sentences of “The Year of Magical Thinking” (Knopf, 240 pages, $23.95). It is influential writer Joan Didion’s amazing memoir of the year that followed the death of her husband of almost 40 years, author John Gregory Dunne, on Dec. 30, 2003.
In that same year, their one child, daughter Quintana Roo Dunne Michael, hovered near death not once but twice in hospitals on either side of the country. She died in August at age 39.
“The Year of Magical Thinking” manuscript was finished by then. And Didion chose not to reopen it to include her daughter’s death. Critics have lauded that decision, saying that the book is more powerful because it stays in a one-year frame.
This is not a self-help guide to grieving; Didion is much more of a writer and much more of an intellectual to recount her tragic year in such a shallow way. Rather, this book is an almost disquieting look at losing one of the two most important people in your life and trying to cope with that while facing the possible death of the other.
Other biographies and memoirs to consider:
“Captain John Smith: Jamestown and the Birth of the American Dream,” by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler (Wiley, 274 pages, $25.95). This husband-and-wife team of historians uses its subject’s own writings and those of people who knew him to separate fact from fiction in the story of the man credited with the survival of the colony.
“Coming Home to Myself,” by Wynonna Judd with Patsi Bale Cox (New American Library, 245 pages, $25.95). Half of one of country music’s top duos ever, Judd bares all in a book that at times reads almost like an inventory for a 12-step program.
“Elia Kazan: A Biography,” by Richard Schickel (HarperCollins, 510 pages, $29.95). Time magazine’s film critic looks at the successes and failures of this film and theatrical director and best-selling novelist whose towering contributions to his art were discounted when he “named names” before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in the 1950s.
“Dean & Me (A Love Story),” by Jerry Lewis and James Kaplan (Doubleday, 340 pages, $26.95). Lewis takes the reader on the comedic duo’s 10-year run from the day they met on a New York City street to the impulsive interruption by Lewis of a Dean Martin show that launched a historic show business partnership, and to his friend’s memorial service.
“Harvey Cushing: A Life in Surgery,” by Michael Bliss (Oxford, 592 pages, $40). A medical historian brings back to life an amazingly accomplished man who was the father of American neurosurgery, a leading authority on the pituitary gland, a pioneer of endocrinology and a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer.
“Kafka: The Decisive Years,” by Reiner Stach (Harcourt, 581 pages, $35). This is the first book in a planned three-volume biography of the famed writer and covers the years 1910-1915.
“Lennon Revealed,” by Larry Kane (Running Press, 272 pages, $29.85). Thursday was the 25th anniversary of the murder of Beatle John Lennon. Here the author uses his own background with the group and countless interviews to provide new insights into Lennon’s life and character.
“Mao: The Unknown Story,” by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday (Knopf, 814 pages, $35). The reviews of this biography, which rips away any doubt that Mao was anything but a monster, sound more like reviews of a movie with words like “bombshell,” “awesome” and “tremendous” popping up often.
“Mary Magdalene: A Biography,” by Bruce Chilton (Doubleday, 220 pages, $23.95). The author, a renowned biblical scholar, looks at the myths surrounding this Mary and makes a strong case for her having had a strong influence on Christianity.
“Mencken: The American Iconoclast,” by Marion Elizabeth Rodgers (Oxford, 662 pages, $35). The author offers a detailed look at the life and works of one of America’s foremost journalists and social critics, whose public identity outshines his private one.
“700 Sundays,” by Billy Crystal (Warner Books, 182 pages, $21.95). This funny memoir of family life started out as the most successful nonmusical Broadway play in 2004. The title comes from the number of Sundays Crystal figures he spent with his father, who died when the author was 15.
“Shakespeare: The Biography,” by Peter Ackroyd (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 572 pages, $32.50). The author looks as much at the times of Shakespeare as he does the man, making it seem like the book is written by a contemporary of the subject.
“Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star,” by Tab Hunter with Eddie Muller (Algonquin, 378 pages, $24.95). The former Hollywood star looks back at his life, including what it was like for a homosexual to be a leading man in the 1950s and 1960s.
“The Tender Bar: A Memoir,” by J.R. Moehringer (Hyperion, $368 pages, $23.95). In one of the most praised books of 2005, this Denver resident recalls how the men who hung out at a New York City corner bar took a fatherless boy into their hearts and their lives and how it shaped his life.
“Two Lives,” by Vikram Seth (HarperCollins, 512 pages, $27.95). The gifted author of “A Suitable Boy” details life in Europe during and after World War II by telling the stories of his great-uncle, who left India as Hitler was rising to power, and the German woman who later became his wife in England.
“Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life,” by Julia Briggs (Harcourt, 352 pages, $30). Kirkus Reviews wrote of this book by a longtime Woolf scholar, “exemplary literary biography eschewing Bloomsbury gossip and psychosexual speculation in favor of what really matters: the English writer’s groundbreaking writing.”
Staff writer Ed Will can be reached at 303-820-1694 or ewill@denverpost.com.
HERE ARE SOME IDEAS FOR:
Your daughter who is determined to study education:
“Teacher Man,” by Frank McCourt
Your brother, who says he’s a redneck because he likes country music:
“Coming Home to Myself,” by Wynonna Judd
