51 pages • 1-hour read
Notes to John
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Chapters 22-32Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussions of depression, chronic illness, substance use, addiction, and homicide.
Chapter 22 Summary: “28 June 2000”
Didion and Dr. MacKinnon discuss aging and legacy. They also continue their conversation about Quintana’s well-being. Dr. MacKinnon encourages Didion to stay positive, reminding her that she can set a good example for Quintana. The conversation edges into the topic of depression, work, and money. Didion still feels frustrated with her work. She considers how her cancer diagnosis some years prior has impacted her work since.
Chapter 23 Summary: “5 July 2000”
Didion tells Dr. MacKinnon about Quintana’s time in Arizona. She thinks the trip has been good for her. The topic shifts to various forms of treatment, particularly for addiction. Didion muses on how Quintana’s contact with her birth family has affected how she sees herself. (In 1998, Quintana’s biological sister contacted her. Quintana learned that the majority of her biological relatives were people with alcoholism.) Didion and Dr. MacKinnon consider genetic and environmental factors in predisposing a person towards alcohol addiction. Didion reflects on her own drinking habits, which Dr. MacKinnon assures her aren’t the same as being addicted to alcohol. They also talk about isolation, and how Didion has felt like an outsider since she was young.
Chapter 24 Summary: “12 July 2000”
Didion tells Dr. MacKinnon about Quintana’s recent work setbacks. She is upset that her editor left Elle Decor (where Quintana is working) for another magazine. The conversation shifts back to Didion’s experience with cancer and her recent conversation with a friend on the subject. Dr. MacKinnon encourages Didion to cultivate such relationships further, particularly as she ages.
Didion muses on her interpersonal relationships in general. She wonders if her lifelong feelings of isolation have made her too dependent on Quintana. She also talks about her relationship with her mother and Quintana’s relationship with her late cousin Dominique Dunne. (Dominique was John’s brother Nick’s daughter; she was murdered by her boyfriend in 1982.) Didion wonders if she and Quintana would have a better relationship if Dominique were still alive and Quintana still had her friendship. Didion expresses her regret over not advising Dominique more directly about her abusive relationship.
Chapter 25 Summary: “6 September 2000”
Didion shares her thoughts about faith and AA with Dr. MacKinnon. She still isn’t sure how she feels about the program, but acknowledges that it’s been helping Quintana of late. The conversation shifts to guilt and blame. Dr. MacKinnon argues that these mindsets are central to how “Protestants bring up children” (123). They discuss how these habits of thought relate to Didion and Quintana’s relationship.
Chapter 26 Summary: “13 September 2000”
Didion tells Dr. MacKinnon about her recent encounters with Quintana and Quintana’s ongoing work struggles. She wants to quit her job and Didion and John aren’t sure they should give her money. Dr. MacKinnon reminds Didion to support and trust Quintana. He also suggests that overprotective mothering can distort how a child perceives her father and herself. Didion muses on her own parents’ relationship and how it might have impacted her marriage and relationship with Quintana.
Chapter 27 Summary: “20 September 2000”
Didion describes her and John’s anxieties over their recent dinner with Quintana. They did their best to support her work decisions per Dr. MacKinnon’s suggestions. Quintana seemed to be listening, but then abruptly quit her job. Dr. MacKinnon suggests that Quintana might not know how to play the professional game because she didn’t learn how to negotiate as a child. He reminds Didion that it isn’t her fault for not teaching Quintana these skills because her parents didn’t impart them to her either. They discuss healthy ways of helping a child learn important life skills.
Chapter 28 Summary: “27 September 2000”
Didion has been thinking about how her unconscious expectations of Quintana might be impacting their relationship. She wonders if she’s inadvertently pressured Quintana to be the person and do the things she felt she couldn’t do. They go on to discuss inherited traits, and how Didion’s relationship with her father might have impacted her psychology. Didion reflects on how she and John handled Quintana’s college experience and education, and the regret she still feels over this dynamic.
Chapter 29 Summary: “4 October 2000”
Didion describes her and Quintana’s experience at the Blessing of the Animals ceremony at church. A Bible verse she heard made her reconsider her tendency to worry. She and Dr. MacKinnon delve back into Didion’s tendency to expect “the worst possible outcome” (142). He speculates that she learned to worry from her parents.
Chapter 30 Summary: “11 October 2000”
Didion starts crying as soon as she enters Dr. MacKinnon’s office. She tells him she recently began working on her California book again. She didn’t feel upset before she arrived and doesn’t know why she’s crying now. Dr. MacKinnon helps her work through the emotion, suggesting the tears might be tears of relief rather than sorrow. The conversation shifts to Didion’s self-regard. She admits she doesn’t see herself as a caring person; Dr. MacKinnon argues that she is caring and Quintana’s situation doesn’t negate this. They go on to discuss possible rehab programs for Quintana, and her need to make her own decisions and care for herself.
Chapter 31 Summary: “18 October 2000”
Didion says that Quintana has been doing better this week. She left her boyfriend (who Didion thought was a bad influence) and got a new job. She feels silly now for worrying. Dr. MacKinnon encourages her not to minimize her concern for Quintana. The conversation shifts to Didion’s work, lack of energy, and concerns about aging. They also discuss guilt and the working mother.
Chapter 32 Summary: “1 November 2000”
Didion shares her concerns about Quintana. She was doing better for a few days, but her mood changed when she started her new freelance assignment. Didion tried to be encouraging and they had some nice phone calls reminiscing about Quintana’s childhood. They talked about watching horror movies together when Quintana was young; Didion insists she was more afraid than Quintana. The conversation shifts to fear and overprotection, and Quintana’s potential fear of abandoning Didion.
The discussion shifts to Didion’s California book. Dr. MacKinnon thinks the book’s subject matter might help Didion confront her past and work through some of the topics they’ve been discussing.
Chapters 22-32 Analysis
As Didion opens up to Dr. MacKinnon about her childhood and her fraught relationship with her daughter, she comes to terms with the similarities between herself and Quintana rather than focusing on their differences, highlighting the text’s thematic focus on Navigating Mother-Daughter Relationships. In Didion’s early diary entries, she expresses open confusion as to why Quintana sees their relationship as difficult. Indeed, Quintana expressly asks Didion “to see a psychiatrist” because she believes “that something in her and [Didion’s] relationship made her feel [Didion’s anxiety] more acutely, made her lock into [it]” (3). The longer Didion works with Dr. MacKinnon, the more she’s able to honestly confront her faults, express her fears, and acknowledge her role in Quintana’s experience. These successes in her therapeutic treatment represent a turning point in Didion’s relationship with Quintana as she processes how the expression of her love for her daughter might inadvertently limit Quintana’s independence and sense of self.
Throughout Chapters 22-32, Didion makes more connections between her relationship with her mother and her relationship with her daughter, reiterating the generational and cyclical nature of familial dynamics. Didion and Dr. MacKinnon’s conversations about motherhood center on guilt, isolation, control, and protection—all emotional parallels Didion sees between her relationship with her mother and her relationship with her daughter. Didion writes: “I said I recognized that the emotional isolation we had discussed could have tended naturally to make me over-dependent on [Quintana]—in the sense of being too emotionally invested in her” (118). Didion’s life-long feelings of isolation, rooted in her childhood relationship with her mom, have led her to rely on Quintana and inadvertently discourage her independence.
Recognizing these generational patterns allows Didion to disentangle the past from the present and gain a new perspective on her daughter’s experience, highlighting the benefits of Confronting Mental Health in a Therapeutic Setting. As Didion’s psychiatrist helps her to talk through her past, he encourages her to articulate how her experiences impact the way she sees herself, especially in the context of others. Doing so helps Didion gain insight into how she’s relied on her relationship with Quintana to give her life dimension or to satisfy her unrealized longing for love and companionship. As Dr. MacKinnon observes, “When you match an over-dependent grown child against an overprotective parent, you reach a kind of stalemate,” highlighting the ways these generational cycles inhibit healthy growth in both parent and child (125).
Throughout her therapeutic accounting, Didion gives credence to Dr. MacKinnon’s insights by granting them space amidst her own reflections. She doesn’t simply detail what she told Dr. MacKinnon or how she felt about their conversations; rather, she incorporates Dr. MacKinnon’s recommendations and assessments into her account. In doing so, she illustrates Dr. MacKinnon’s impact on her psychology. For example, when she and Dr. MacKinnon talk about guilt, Didion recounts exactly what Dr. MacKinnon told her about how guilt features heavily in Protestant upbringings in particular. Her transcript of his words spans roughly a half page, and takes over Didion’s authorial voice:
In other words it was her fault […] I understand this pattern all too well, I grew up with it. It’s the way Protestants bring up children. In the interests of promoting modesty in children—a Christian virtue—they massacre self-esteem. It’s always the child’s fault. Because if it wasn’t the child’s fault it would be their fault. Everything has to be somebody’s fault in this scheme (123).
Dr. MacKinnon goes on to consider how this Protestant mindset has impacted his psychology, and how it might similarly be impacting Didion’s outlook on herself and her relationships. Didion’s decision not to summarize Dr. MacKinnon’s monologue, but rather include it verbatim, indicates its impact on her. She incorporates such passages throughout these entries, providing a map for her growth and change. These moments of transcription contrast with Didion’s use of fragmentation or elision when she summarizes or provides only a cursory record of what was discussed. For example, she writes “Change of subject” or “A brief discussion of the Middle East” (117, 151). These fragments speak to the scope of her and Dr. MacKinnon’s discussion without fully delving into every point, emphasizing the more impactful moments from her sessions.
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