In Memory of Joan Didion: 'Blue Nights'

Bookworm

KCRW

Arts

4.5 • 606 Ratings

🗓️ 13 January 2022

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

After the deaths of her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and her daughter, Quintana, Joan Didion wrote "Blue Nights," the most personal and poetic book of her career. From 2011, she talks about aging, death, and the act of complete surrender that this devastating book required.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Michael Silverblatt.
0:02.2	The great American writer Joan Didion passed away recently.
0:06.6	It was my honor to have several bookworm conversations with her.
0:11.1	Today, we are re-airing a conversation from 2011 about her memoir, Blue Nights,
0:18.0	the most personal and poetic book of her career.
0:21.9	Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.
0:25.5	Boots!
0:30.5	Where would we be without booms?
0:34.4	Where would we be without good?
0:36.6	No, Tberd.
0:38.1	It's a rhetorical question, sir, but where would we be without books?
0:45.3	From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Michael Silverblad, and this is bookworm.
0:53.4	People who know the sound of my voice know that my voice is
0:57.9	full of the awe that I feel to be in the presence of a writer I truly admire. Her book is called
1:05.1	Blue Nights. It's published by Knapp and I thought we would begin by hearing its opening section.
1:12.4	This is Joan Diddy in reading.
1:14.5	In certain latitudes, there comes a span of time, approaching and following the summer solstice,
1:20.5	some weeks in all, when the twilights turn long and blue.
1:26.2	This period of the blue nights does not occur in sub-tropical
1:29.5	California, where I live for much of the time I will be talking about here and where the
1:34.7	end of daylight is fast and lost in the blaze of the dropping sun. But it does occur in New York
1:42.0	where I now live. You notice at first as April ends and May begins a change in the season.
	...

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