51 pages • 1 hour read
Notes to John
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Introduction-Chapter 10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussions of substance use, suicidal ideation, addiction, depression, and anxiety.
Didion’s diary entries use both the past and present tenses. These summaries preserve these same tense shifts.
Introduction Summary
After Didion died in 2021, the heirs of her estate (her brother’s children) discovered unpublished pages in her office. They brought the pages to the New York Public Library, where they’re now accessible to the public. In Notes to John, select pages have been collected into a pseudo diary. The pages detail some of Didion’s sessions with her psychiatrist, Dr. Roger MacKinnon. She began working with him in 1999 and documented their conversations in personal journal entries which she addressed to her husband John Gregory Dunne. These entries detail Didion and Dr. MacKinnon’s conversations about Didion and her daughter Quintana’s relationship and Didion’s childhood. In a separate computer file, Didion remarked on the transformative nature of her and Dr. MacKinnon’s work.
Chapter 1 Summary: “29 December 1999”
Didion and Dr. MacKinnon discuss her dosage of Zoloft, an SSRI antidepressant medication. She’s worried about changing her medication, lest it make her lose control or worsen her anxiety. The conversation shifts to Didion’s anxieties over Quintana, now 33 years old, who struggles with alcoholism. Dr. MacKinnon suggests that Didion is too attached to Quintana. Didion admits that she’s “always been afraid” of losing her and has done everything to protect her (4). Dr. MacKinnon suggests this fear originates from Didion’s core belief that she’s undeserving of good things.
