Looking now at photographs of Quintana as a child, Didion wonders how she could have missed ‘the startling depths and shallows of her expressions, the quicksilver changes of mood’. But what’s the standard here? How alert do parents have to be not to find themselves looking back with dismay? Or how lucky? ‘When we talk about our children … are we talking about … the whole puzzle of being a parent?’ Didion asks. When she talks about Quintana is she always thinking about herself?
Tuesday, November 05, 2019
A book about fear …
… Mary-Kay Wilmers reviews ‘Blue Nights’ by Joan Didion — LRB 3 November 2011. (Hat tip, Virginia Kerr.)
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