finished Brick Lane  last night, much to my sorrow.  i wanted to hang out with Nazneen for a lot longer.  have endless cups of tea, go round to the shops, see what was going to happen to the rest of her life.  i'll say more on this later, this is just a flying visit.

what i wanted to mention was that John Gregory Dunne died New Year's day.  (there's entirely too much of that going around lately.) i thought of him mainly as Joan Didion's husband, though of course he was a writer, of fiction, nonfiction and film scripts, in his own realm.  and a good one.  he was also writer Dominick Dunne's brother, something i didn't realize.  my heart goes out to Didion, she lost her mother fairly recently and now her husband.  she is only a little older than i am, and i can't imagine the rest of my life without my partner.  i have been reading Joan Didion as long as she's been writing, met her once when i was managing bookstores for Doubleday and she came thru Dallas on a booktour.  i almost think of her as someone i know, which of course is silly.  in any case, my sympathy and thoughts are with her.