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Blue Nights
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About the Author:
Joan Didion is the author of five novels and seven previous books of nonfiction: among them the great portraits of a decade in essays, `Sentimental Journeys', `The White Album', and `Slouching Towards Bethlehem'. Her previous book, `The Year of Magical Thinking' was an international bestseller.
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In certain latitudes there comes a span of time approaching and following the summer solstice, some weeks in all, when the twilights turn long and blue. This period of the blue nights does not occur in subtropical California, where I lived for much of the time I will be talking about here and where the end of daylight is fast and lost in the blaze of the dropping sun, but it does occur in New York, where I now live. You notice it first as April ends and May begins, a change in the season, not exactly a warming—in fact not at all a warming—yet suddenly summer seems near, a possibility, even a promise. You pass a window, you walk to Central Park, you find yourself swimming in the color blue: the actual light is blue, and over the course of an hour or so this blue deepens, becomes more intense even as it darkens and fades, approximates finally the blue of the glass on a clear day at Chartres, or that of the Cerenkov radiation thrown off by the fuel rods in the pools of nuclear reactors. The French called this time of day “l’heure bleue.” To the English it was “the gloaming.” The very word “gloaming” reverberates, echoes— the gloaming, the glimmer, the glitter, the glisten, the glamour—carrying in its consonants the images of houses shuttering, gardens darkening, grass-lined rivers slipping through the shadows. During the blue nights you think the end of day will never come. As the blue nights draw to a close (and they will, and they do) you experience an actual chill, an apprehension of illness, at the moment you first notice: the blue light is going, the days are already shortening, the summer is gone. This book is called “Blue Nights” because at the time I began it I found my mind turning increasingly to illness, to the end of promise, the dwindling of the days, the inevitability of the fading, the dying of the brightness.
Blue nights are the opposite of the dying of the brightness, but they are also its warning.
From the Hardcover edition.
Blue nights are the opposite of the dying of the brightness, but they are also its warning.
From the Hardcover edition.
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- PublisherFourth Estate
- Publication date2012
- ISBN 10 0007432909
- ISBN 13 9780007432905
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages208
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Richly textured with bits of her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by Joan Didion examines her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness, and growing old.Blue Nights opens on July 26, 2010, as Didion thinks back to Quintanas wedding in New York seven years before. Today would be her wedding anniversary. This fact triggers vivid snapshots of Quintanas childhood in Malibu, in Brentwood, at school in Holmby Hills. Reflecting on her daughter but also on her role as a parent, Didion asks the candid questions any parent might about how she feels she failed either because cues were not taken or perhaps displaced. How could I have missed what was clearly there to be seen? Finally, perhaps we all remain unknown to each other.Blue Nights the long, light evening hours that signal the summer solstice, the opposite of the dying of the brightness, but also its warning like The Year of Magical Thinking before it, is an iconic book of incisive and electric honesty. From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780007432905
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Book Description Condition: New. 2012. Paperback. From one of our most powerful writers, a work of stunning frankness about losing a daughter. Num Pages: 208 pages. BIC Classification: BM; VFJX. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 196 x 132 x 16. Weight in Grams: 174. . . . . . Seller Inventory # V9780007432905
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