Chapters 5 and 6 Summary and Analysis

Didion details the process of Quintana's disease. She describes its beginnings on Christmas Eve, the medicine given, including one that cost twenty thousand dollars a dose, and the visit paid she and John paid Quintana the night of "the event". Quintana's doctor that night commented that he didn't know which way her illness would turn. The customary loving farewell John whispered to her would be repeated by Quintana at her father's funeral.

Didion recalls her wedding, and Quintana's, which had occurred only four months before Quintana became ill and five months before John's death. She author writes at length of memories that came flooding back to her when she looked at the photos of her and her family on the bedroom wall. She writes of the commonality of grief, analyses the Indian tradition of "suttee", comments that on the...