Bread-worthy books

Nourishing and substantial books read recently: The Kiss by Kathryn Harrison and The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.

These are both memoirs by women of ferocious intelligence and lucid, brilliant prose. Both women write about losing their bearing - Didion when her husband of 40 years dies suddenly while their only child is comatose, Harrison when, in her 20s, she is seduced by her estranged father.


ReadingThe Kiss was a bit like reading Bastard out of Carolina, only a little harder, since I knew it was a memoir. I'm not quite sure what to say - it was such a raw read. Raw but artful. Harrison like a dentist carving away the rotten part of a molar with a slim silver sicle.

The Year of Magical Thinking is the third book of Didion's that I've read. I'm in awe of her essays - Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album make me realize how adolescent my own writing still is. The Year is good writing, but I read it for what it shared about what it feels like to lose a partner/friend/husband. Close deaths and mourning have not yet intruded closely on my life, but they will, someday. That much is certain.