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.

瓊•狄迪恩

美國女作傢、記者。生於1934年，20世紀60年代步入文壇。她在小說、雜文及劇本寫作上都卓有建樹，在美國當代文學領域有舉足輕重的地位。2005年，瓊•狄迪恩獲美國國傢圖書奬。2007年，她又獲得瞭美國國傢圖書基金會為對美國國傢文學做齣卓越貢獻的作傢頒發的年度奬章。2013年，美國政府授予瓊•狄迪恩美國國傢人文奬章。

主要作品有《藍夜》《嚮伯利恒跋涉》《奇想之年》等。