DIDION’S MAGICAL CONNECTION

We call it the Joan Didion memorial issue. What else would you call this past Sunday’s New York Times Book Review?
It featured Robert Pinsky’s notice on the cover (trying too hard, it was dully academic), along with a lovely family photo from Didion’s private collection, and Rachel Donadio’s profile of her, a two-page spread that ran so long it spilled over onto a third page (also dull, sad to say). The occasion was the arrival of Didion’s new book, “The Year of Magical Thinking.” Couple all that with Michiko Kakutani’s daily review (on Oct. 4) and the cover story of The New York Times Magazine (on Sept. 25) — an 8,500-word excerpt from the book (which we liked very much) — and it gives us an inkling that Joan is connected.
— Tireless Staff of Thousands