This book is a reproduction of notes Didion made during her appointments with a psychiatrist renowned as an effective clinician, Dr. Roger MacKinnon, from December 1999 to January 2002. The notes are written to her husband, John Gregory Dunne, referring to him as “you” throughout, and the file is part of the collection of Didion’s and Dunne’s papers curated at the New York Public Library archive. While no restrictions were placed on their access by the family, there is controversy surrounding the publication of this book, in that Didion’s close friends have firmly stated that it would be against Didion’s wishes to disclose such personal material, and also a violation of the privacy of Didion’s daughter, Quintana. (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/apr/28/notes-to-john-by-joan-didion-review-a-writer-on-the-couch https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/may/02/my-friend-joan-didion-wouldnt-have-wanted-her-therapy-notes-to-be-published#:~:text=with%20Parkinson's%20disease.-,What%20is%20plausible%2C%20given%20her%20physical%20condition%2C%20is%20that%20she,knowing%20her%2C%20supports%20this%20view.)

Quintana, adopted daughter of Didion and Dunne, developed alcoholism, leading to great difficulties for her parents, that most of us could imagine. Conscientious parents always question how well we did our job, even more so when our children fail to launch, or cannot seem to advance in their own lives, even in the most basic goals of independence, job, relationships, and day-to-day responsibilities. Loving parents struggle with the urge to rescue these children, saddled with guilt whether they do so, or do not, hoping to foster the adult child’s independence. Substance abuse complicates these struggles. Guilt and depression are constant burdens, as parents cannot help but feel they created the problems. Didion sought professional assistance to navigate the correct way to best help Quintana, and deal with her own feelings.

Didion’s situation was made so much more difficult by the timing of her subsequent losses: Quintana was hospitalized with pneumonia and septic shock in December 2003; less than one week later, Didion’s husband suddenly died of a heart attack in their home. Quintana’s health struggles continued for the next two years, until she died at age thirty-nine. Didion discusses the loss of her husband in the award-winning book, The Year of Magical Thinking, which I highly recommend. Her memoir Blue Nights discusses the years following, leading to the death of her daughter. Notes to John is an empathetic rendering of a caring parent’s attempts to save the life of an adult child, and the emotional difficulties resulting. Parents who experience such stresses and the resulting turmoil will find common ground, and a sense of relief from these honest pages. This is an intelligent, loving parent trying to do the right thing, suffering the doubts and pains of watching their child suffer. Joan Didion went on to live sixteen more years, dying in 2021, of complications due to Parkinson’s disease. She was eighty-seven.

I discuss Joan Didion’s writing in more detail in the review of her book, Let Me Tell You What I Mean (https://www.margueritereads.com/home/let-mean-tell-you-what-i-mean-by-joan-didion?rq=joan%20didion). She is one of our important American writers, and much is to be gained by reading her work.