Blue Nights by Joan Didion

Joan Didion is a woman of many credible novels. She is known for her literary journalism and personal stories told in methods of coping with tragic accidents. Her memoir, Blue Nights is a perfect example. Blue Nights is a National best seller and displays Didion's life and emotions during tragic times in which even writing can not fully grasp the mourning and desperation she felt. 

The picture to the left displays not only the cover photo of Blue Nights but an image of Joan Didion and her daughter Quintana Roo. Quintana Roo is Didion's adopted daughter who passed away. She is apart of the heavy subject matter that is represented throughout the writing in Blue Nights. The experience of Quintana's death along with Didion's husband, John Dunne, is expanded throughout the memoir to not tell, but show, how Didion got through it. BLue Nights helps to show how to cope, and how she managed to live her life afterwards with so much tragedy. Everyone close to her was taken away and surprisingly enough this memoir is not about her grieving through this process, it displays her regret. Didion carries so much regret that was revealed after the death of her daughter and regret that is dwelled upon and expanded every day. She makes many references to these ideals and thoughts throughout the memoir which in all makes it that much more powerful and relatable. 

Joan Didion Displays her regret of this experience through the ideals of memories and faliur. She focuses heavily on the importance of specific subjects such as love or children and then not necessarily contradicts it, but expresses her mindset of regret she felt. Here are a few examples in the text of Didion's powerful language used to display her inner regret through memories and fear of failure

"Their actual subject was this refusal even to engage in such contemplation, this failure to confront the certainties if aging, illness, death. This fear.(54)"

"What if I fail to take care of this baby? What if this baby fails to thrive? What if this baby fails to love me? And worse yet, worse by far, [...] What if I fail to love this baby? (58)"

"Memories are by definition of times past, things gone.[...] Memories are what you no longer want to remember. (64)"

These few quotes simply demonstrate Didion's overall meaning with this memoir and in which directions she took it too. She clearly in mourning the death of her loved ones, expressing her emotions, displaying her vulnerability, showing us her inner thoughts, and is letting her readers in on the regret and the blame she places upon her self. She consistently asks herself; Did I do enough? Could I have done more? Is this my fault? Why? What did I do wrong? By telling her memoir in this way rather than simply showing her grief not only makes this read mesmerizing  but relatable as well. We all experience emotions of which are not always positive and tend to blame ourselves, regret the past, dwell, question, and wonder why. With this memoir Didion reaches out to so many who not necessarily experienced death of a child or a loved one, illnesses or tragedies but regret. Naturally as humans we dwell on the past of what could have been and Didion contemplates these ideas with the use of her lyrical language, vivid images and  personal experiences. There is no doubting that this memoir was a Nation Bestseller. After reading Blue Nights it is vividly clear as to why.