Didion opens the book with the first words she wrote after the death of her husband John Gregory Dunne: “Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant” (3). She explores the fact that, often when discussing how someone died, people focus on the ordinariness of the day. As a journalist, she interviewed individuals about their experiences during Pearl Harbor and the September 11 Attacks. In both instances, those she interviewed fixated at first on the normality of the events preceding these major occurrences. She describes her own ordinariness of experience during her husband’s death.

On Christmas morning, 2003, Didion and Dunne rushed their daughter Quintana to the hospital—what had seemed like winter flu had developed into pneumonia and septic shock. Five days later, as Quintana remained unconscious in an intensive care unit, Gregory suffered a heart attack at the dinner table which resulted in his passing. In the weeks that followed, her home was filled with friends. Didion believes she must have shared the story of her husband’s death with them but cannot recall these conversations. Her time in this limbo of grief is marked by exhaustion.

Didion, a celebrated journalist and writer, had always used writing in the past to help her find meaning and clarity in the events of the world.