By an unnatural coincidence, during the week that I started reading this book my brother collapsed, and was subsequently diagnosed with terminal cancer. I finished the book, in between tending to him, but must admit to a certain level of distraction. And I took it very personally.

So I'm afraid that this is going to be a very self-indulgent review, wallowing in self-pity, as it were.

First off, Joan Didion wrote this book as a form of therapy. This is something that I's going to have to try. Actually, I suppose that that's what I'm doing right now. (By another coincidence, when reading to Karl from the Scientific American that had just shown up in his mailbox, I came across an article on the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, theorizing that this is part of what's caused the recent explosion of blogging.)

Didion found solace in poetry - reading it, quoting it, looking it up - even, to some extent, writing it. I'm finding solace in music - stuffing a piece of music, usually a hymn tune, in the back of my head and letting it loop throughout the day.

She also experienced denial. (Isn't this supposed to be the first stage of grief?)
I desperately hung on to the shreds of my own denial, until one of his doctors, dancing around the hard truth, told me that any possible treatment would not be 'curative'.

And Didion poked around in the past, looking for omens that she should have noticed. We did that too. He seemed fine when I last saw him, in early May. But. He'd been having headaches. And he needed help in moving our parents' TV.

In the end, Didion finds acceptance. That hasn't happened to me yet and isn't likely to, not for awhile.