As the name suggests, Notes to John contains Joan Didion’s notes for her husband John Gregory Dunne. The writing focuses on her detailed conversations with a Freudian psychiatrist, Roger MacKinnon, discussing their daughter Quintana, and Didion’s struggles with work, anxiety, depression, motherhood, and ageing. These sessions began after Quintana’s psychiatrist was unable to resolve her problems with addiction, personality disorder, and depression. He suspected that a complicated mother-daughter relationship was one of the root causes of Quintana’s problems. He suggested that Didion start seeing a psychiatrist to work through this.

Quintana was suicidal and she suffered from low self-esteem, personality disorders, anxiety, and depression. She isolated herself from friends and family, believing she did not deserve them. She also struggled with the creative work of photography. Didion was constantly worried that Quintana would end her life.

Didion’s sessions with MacKinnon reveal her tendency to always anticipate catastrophe, and that this was rooted in her childhood. As we read about the suicidal risk her daughter posed, we discover that it had cast a long shadow over Didion’s childhood as her father struggled with suicidal thoughts. The fact that Quintana was adopted added to Didion’s anxiety.

Adblock test (Why?)