From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Richly textured with bits of her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by Joan Didion examines her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness, and growing old.

Blue Nights opens on July 26, 2010, as Didion thinks back to Quintana’s wedding in New York seven years before. Today would be her wedding anniversary. This fact triggers vivid snapshots of Quintana’s childhood—in Malibu, in Brentwood, at school in Holmby Hills. Reflecting on her daughter but also on her role as a parent, Didion asks the candid questions any parent might about how she feels she failed either because cues were not taken or perhaps displaced. “How could I have missed what was clearly there to be seen?” Finally, perhaps we all remain unknown to each other. Seamlessly woven in are incidents Didion sees as underscoring her own age, something she finds hard to acknowledge, much less accept.

Blue Nights —the long, light evening hours that signal the summer solstice, “the opposite of the dying of the brightness, but also its warning”—like The Year of Magical Thinking before it, is an iconic book of incisive and electric honesty, haunting and profoundly moving.

琼•狄迪恩

美国女作家、记者。生于1934年，20世纪60年代步入文坛。她在小说、杂文及剧本写作上都卓有建树，在美国当代文学领域有举足轻重的地位。2005年，琼•狄迪恩获美国国家图书奖。2007年，她又获得了美国国家图书基金会为对美国国家文学做出卓越贡献的作家颁发的年度奖章。2013年，美国政府授予琼•狄迪恩美国国家人文奖章。

主要作品有《蓝夜》《向伯利恒跋涉》《奇想之年》等。