Chapters 15 and 16 Summary and Analysis

In 1994, in an attempt to avoid memories, Didion covers both the Democratic and Republican national conventions. However, she runs into an unexpected trigger when she realizes the first day of the convention is also Quintana's wedding anniversary. A panic attack is triggered by the memories, and other memories come back, one being of when she and John brought home three-day-old Quintana. One memory leads her to wonder whether mothers "always [tried] to press on their daughters the itineraries of which they themselves had dreamed?" Finally, she remembers how "the most beautiful things [she] had ever seen had all been seen from airplanes . . . with John" and wonders how she could ever travel anywhere without him.

Didion recalls how theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking states he's changed his mind: information (i.e., images of events traveling as light) sucked into black holes...