I read “The Year of Magical Thinking” and “Blue Nights” back-to-back, and there’s a shift in tone from bewilderment to desolation as the anchors in her life were destroyed. “The Year of Magical Thinking” was dashed off in a year, while “Blue Nights” was worked and worked and agonized over. You can feel the different kinds of grief in the sinews of the text.
I read “The Year of Magical Thinking” and “Blue Nights” back-to-back, and there’s a shift in tone from bewilderment to desolation as the anchors in her life were destroyed. “The Year of Magical Thinking” was dashed off in a year, while “Blue Nights” was worked and worked and agonized over. You can feel the different kinds of grief in the sinews of the text.