Reading “Notes to John”, Joan Didion’s posthumously published book of post-therapy jottings, left me “feeling a little grubby at being privy to such an intrusion”, said Catherine Jarvie in The i Paper.
Didion, who died in 2021, was a scrupulously private person and it is widely presumed that she didn’t want these personal records published – although it could be argued that her meticulous organisation of the 150 typed pages suggests otherwise. The main topic for the run of therapy sessions from 1999 to 2002 was Didion’s daughter, Quintana, and her struggles with alcohol and depression. It makes for a “desperately sad” read.
‘Slightly sordid and absolutely fascinating’
Is the publication of this “slim new book” unethical? asked Alexandra Jacobs in The New York Times. “I don’t think so.” Rather than focusing on whether Didion would have been upset by the publication, “we should be saying hallelujah that people still want to see these and not just some influencer’s nudes”.
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“Notes to John” is “slightly sordid and absolutely fascinating”, in part due to a scattering of casual references to Didion’s lavish lifestyle, which make “the idea that this book is some kind of money grab by her trustees or publisher seem oddly sanctimonious.” Didion and Dunne “loved money”.
It’s an “undeniably interesting book”, said Lola Seaton in The New Statesman, and any “sense of prying” is counter-balanced by the universality of the material that extends beyond Didion’s “particular unhappiness”. In all, it’s a “profound, rich document” filled with “arresting and widely applicable insights”.
‘Intimate storytelling’
Perhaps “this is a performance, a fluent act of imaginative writing” said Taylor Antrim in Vogue. Didion’s supposedly verbatim rendering of dialogue, especially the “stern, admonitory, and unfailingly self-confident” words of her psychiatrist, Roger MacKinnon, amount to an “act of intimate storytelling”.
Both of Didion’s famous memoirs about grief – “The Year of Magical Thinking” and “Blue Nights” – are “breathtakingly personal” but they also “leave gaps”; as a writer she knew “how to stay beyond reach”. But in “Notes to John”, she is “much more forthcoming”. The “plain-spoken” entries are addressed to her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and contain “extremely revealing” material. It will no doubt be a “comfort” to those struggling with an addict in their family.
‘Hallmark-level banal’
Fans will, however, miss the “cool precision” and wit that characterise Didion’s usual writing. The nature of therapy means that MacKinnon’s advice is often “Hallmark-level banal” and repetitive, looping back through the same issues and turning the pages into a “scrapbook of secondary material”, said John Self in The Times. Keen readers should seek out her last memoir, “Blue Nights”, instead.
The “literary value” of “Notes to John” fails to match up to Didion’s previously published work for the “simple reason” that she’s documenting a conversation, not “shaping and editing” her thoughts for the world to see, added Jarvie in The i Paper. “You can’t help but wonder – would this really be something she wanted?”
