Memoir Mentors - Book Club -- 7pm Munich, 10am Pacific

In the Memoir Mentors Book Club, we read memoirs with a memoirist's eye, looking for things that we could use in our writing or things we want to avoid.

We'll be reading:
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later–the night before New Year's Eve–the Dunnes were just sitting down to dinner after visiting the hospital when John Gregory Dunne suffered a massive and fatal coronary. In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of forty years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LAX, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma.

This powerful book is Didion's attempt to make sense of the "weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness . . . about marriage and children and memory . . . about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself."

Some questions to consider when reading:

• Consider the tone Didion uses throughout the book, one of relatively cool detachment. Clearly she is in mourning, and yet her anguish is quite muted. How did this detached tone affect your reading experience?

• Is the story plot-driven, moving briskly from event to event? Or is it character-driven, moving more slowly, delving into characters' inner-lives?

• How does Didion use humor? To express her grief, to deflect it, or for another purpose entirely?

• Does Didion pity herself? In what ways does she indulge that impulse, and in what ways does she deny it?

• Discuss Didion’s repetition of sentences like “For once in your life just let it go” [pp. 141,174]; “We call it the widowmaker” [pp. 157, 203, 207]; “I tell you that I shall not live two days” [pp. 26, 80, 112, 153, 207]; and “Life changes in the instant.” [pp. 3, 77, 89]. What purpose does the repetition serve? Was it effective? Would you consider doing this in your writing?

• Is the plot chronological? Or does it veer back and forth between past and present?

• Is there a turning point in this book? If so, where would you place it and why?

• Do any characters change or grow by the end of the story? Do they come to view the world and their relationship to it differently?

• Share your favorite quote(s) and why you felt it was noteworthy.

• Would you be compelled to keep reading if this were not a book club assignment?

• Were there any surprises? Were they effective?

• Was the point of view and character voice consistent?

• What were the major strengths and weaknesses of the book?

• Do you find the narrator(s) and other characters likable? Believable?
Of all the people described in the book, who did you most relate to or empathize with, and why?

• Were there any inconsistencies that bothered you?

• How honest do you think the author was being?

• What gaps do you wish the author had filled in? Were there points where you thought he shared too much?

• Is the ending a surprise or predictable? Does the end unfold naturally? Or is it forced, heavy handed, or manipulative? Is the ending satisfying, or would you prefer a different ending?

• Is there anything about this book that you want to emulate in your own writing?

• Is there anything that you want to avoid in your own writing?