In order to cope with her nerves, she imagined her life as a Hitchcock movie. Even still, images of her family flooded her mind, and she had to leave the city abruptly.
Didion, the renowned American writer and intellectual, read and discussed excerpts from her latest non-fiction book, "A Year of Magical Thinking" (2005), to a crowded Filene Auditorium on Tuesday afternoon.
Didion's is widely praised for her nonfiction, literature, drama and journalism. A lifelong writer, Didion is the author of 13 books, as well as many essays, articles and book reviews. In 2006, Knopf published an anthology of her work, "We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live" (2006).
"Joan Didion's writing circles around the losses both trivial and catastrophic that we encounter in our daily lives," Richard Stamelman, professor of comparative literature and executive director of the Montgomery Endowment, said in his introduction.
In "A Year of Magical Thinking", Didion discusses her grief at the loss of her husband, the late critic and writer John Gregory Dunne.
Soon after the book was complete, Didion lost her daughter, Quintana, who was in a coma at the time of Dunne's death.
"This is my attempt to make sense of the period that followed, weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I had ever had about death, about illness, about probability and luck, about good fortune and bad," Didion read from the book.
Following the reading, many members of the audience asked Didion about her experience of mourning. The writer distinguished between the active process of mourning and grief, calling the latter "a feeling that overwhelms you."
In 2007 Didion worked with director David Hare to adapt, "A Year of Magical Thinking" into a Broadway play starring Vanessa Redgrave.
A member of the audience asked the writer to describe the process of transforming her book for the stage. "It was an extremely good experience," she said.
Recalling her thoughts at the time Didion explained, "John was dead. Quintana was dead. I was not the same person, so [I thought] maybe I should try something new."
Didion was the first of three Montgomery Fellows coming to Dartmouth this fall. Former U.S. Army general John Abizaid will speak on Oct. 14, followed by journalist John Burns on Oct. 21.
