Joan and John's Apartment

The apartment shared by Joan Didion and John Dunne in New York City is the scene of John's death and the setting for many of the author's encounters with memory and with grief.

New York Hospital

This is the hospital to which John was taken on the night he had his heart attack and died, a hospital with which he and his family were unfamiliar—a fact that made the author's experiences there in the aftermath of his heart attack and death that much more unsettling.

St. John the Divine Church

This church is the setting for several key events in the author's life and recollection—Quintana's wedding, John's funeral, and her encounter with the Japanese tourists in the book's final chapter. In contrast with the sense of displacement she finds in New York Hospital, the author seems to find comfort in...